Video Project Elicits "Umbrella Stories"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A little more than a week after a snowstorm that united the City of Good Neighbors was the perfect time to stage a project that sought to generate conversation between strangers.

Chris Barr, a graduate student in the Department of Media Study in the University at Buffalo, College of Arts and Sciences, brought his traveling project, "From Here to There Under an Umbrella," to Buffalo last weekend. Participants registered online for Barr to escort them to a destination beneath an umbrella, which documented the experience on the Web via a special mounted video camera or "umbrellacam."

The project creates space in which regular routines are altered so that people are freer to engage in intimate or unique conversations.

"It's interesting with the snowstorm that happened," said Barr. "I thought it was relevant to the project. All the people on my street were outside. I don't know if they were working so much as talking in some cases.

"These things bring people together in an interesting way."

His project seeks to create similar situations that encourage interaction. A rainstorm and snowstorm are related in the sense that people will gather under the "roof" of a neighbor for shelter.

An umbrella resembles "a little piece of portable architecture…a semi-private space…in the public sphere," Barr said. Sharing a space designed for one to shelter from the rain inspires closeness because under the circumstances people don't mind walking shoulder-to-shoulder.

"What I was interested in was taking a trip that someone was going to make anyway" -- walking to work, for example – "and opening up that time to a different dialogue," said Barr. "So you have art that seamlessly becomes part of your day."

One walk he took on Sunday morning as part of the project was to the Japanese rock garden in Delaware Park. The presence of rain-soaked and storm-devastated trees generated a few comments about the weather—a classic topic of conversation—but he said most of the talk was less reserved than usual between new acquaintances. Video of the trip reveals the conversation touched on several proverbial "off-limit" subjects, such as religion and politics.

The participant, a UB student who spent three years in the armed forces stationed in Japan, told Barr the project provided the perfect excuse to take time out to visit the garden.

"It's interesting how fast the time passes when you have someone to walk with," Barr noted.

One of the biggest surprises over the weekend, he said, was learning that others possess "umbrella stories" similar to the one that inspired his project. Barr explains he had a relationship grow out of sharing an umbrella in the pouring rain as a freshman at West Virginia University.

Brockport art professor Soyeon Zung, whom Barr escorted Saturday afternoon from an Elmwood Avenue coffee shop to the corner of Linwood and West Ferry streets, told him she still remembers a rainy-day walk she took years ago as an adolescent in Korea.

"She had a real shy crush on a boy and they shared an umbrella from his aunt's house to her house," Barr explained. "And then 10 years later, she said she met up with him again and had dinner. It was a great story."

It is also a perfect example of the sort of personal conversation he is concerned will be lost in the face of fast-paced lifestyles increasingly driven by technology.

"On another level [the project] might say something important about our society," he said. "We get up in the morning, go to work and sit in front of a computer. We e-mail our colleagues -- we don't really talk to them -- get back in our car, go home and watch television.

"We don't even talk to the checkout person [at the supermarket] because we can check ourselves out now," he added.

An important goal of the project was to facilitate real-world connections via technology.

"I'm using the Internet to make physical connections happen again," said Barr, "to reinvigorate public space and, hopefully, add some dialogue.

"Just adding small talk back into the system may be something that's important."

The first installment of "From Here to There Under an Umbrella" took place in September as part of Conflux, the annual New York City festival for "psychogeography," or the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice.

A video blog of the project can be viewed online at http://www.underanumbrella.com/videos.php.