Temporary Audio
Temporary Audio is a location-based audio project. Our mobile audio unit roams sidewalks and street corners to capture the sounds, songs, and soul of the places we cohabit to create mixtapes based in place and time. Passers-by are offered the chance to sing karaoke tracks which are then shared online as collections or "mixtapes".
From Here to There Under an Umbrella
"From Here to There Under an Umbrella" is an umbrella taxi service based on an experience of naive and youthful romance. By offering to escort local residents and festival participants to their desired location under an umbrella, I am interested in how a shift in spatial experience, i.e. a space designed for one being used for two, can shift other relationships such as communication. And how something such as our vulnerability to our environment can offer us unique (and sometime intimate) human experiences.
Time and Other Systems
This week-long performance in collaboration with Veronique Cote investigates the systemization and socialization of time and its implications in early childhood. Using a children's book simply titled "Time" as a script, Chris and Veronique will live in the gallery and hour-by-hour recreate the activities illustrated in the book. The performance looks closely at the cultural molding required by a productive and efficient society, where a packed schedule becomes a status symbol and leisure becomes another victim to the gridded day.
Bureau of Workplace Interruptions
The Bureau of Workplace Interruptions is an "intimate bureaucracy" created to challenge our relationship to time and efficiency. BWI harnesses interruptive technology such as email, snail mail, and the telephone, as well as in-person visits to create invisible theatre that steals time from the realm of work and capital.
17 Minutes
“Every 17 minutes, someone commits suicide in the United States.” 17 Minutes is a performance and video blog project. For each performance I spend 17 minutes standing next to a tree, collapsing at end of the duration. Using time as a signifer this ritual offers a place of reflection, the time between, and deals with the specific circumstance of my own brother’s suicide. As a reenactment it aims to be reminder of the life I am engaged in.
Chris Barr is Available on Thursday
“Chris Barr is Available on Thursday“ aimed to subvert the language of the workday by allowing the public to author the content of my day each Thursday for two months. The project used the artist as a medium for open communication and used web technology to move actions and ideas from an information space into a physical space. Through a collaborative model, the work investigates the sociocultural constructions of everyday life.
Email: chris { at } chrisbarr { dot } net
Telephone: 716.512.9254