Rain Piece

On two large screens above each other, a fifteen-minute scene is seen. The top screen provides a view of the windscreen of a car. The wipers are barely able to cope with the heavy rain. Below the road can be seen, on which the rain continues to fall. The swish of the wipers and the clatter of the rain are the only sound heard. Behind the windscreen the contours can be seen of a man, who apparently stares into the distance without thinking. Then a woman also appears beside him. She apparently had her head lying on his lap. The two move apart and then come back together again after which a love-making session starts.
People watching Rain Piece soon feel ill at ease. The two people who are making love in the privacy of their car do not seem aware of their surroundings. The element of voyeurism is stressed even more by the absence of dialogue. It is almost impossible to avoid the image because of the hypnotic effect of the rainfall and the rhythmic windscreen wipers. In Rain Piece Burt Barr presents an ode to the indestructible symbol of American culture: two people who do it together in a car, ‘making out’.