Rain Room, 2012
Barbican, London; MoMA, NY; Yuz M, Shanghai; LACMA, LA; The Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art, MI
Summary
Rain Room (2012) is an installation created by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, designers and co-founders of Random International, a London-based artist collective, that has visited both LACMA and MoMA. It consists of a large space of continuously falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected beneath. This immersive installation allows visitors to use their mere presence to seemingly control the falling water, a recreation of rain, which furthers the question of humankind’s interaction with nature through technology.
Random International
Mechanism
This installation consists of “water, injection moulded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, custom software, 3D tracking cameras, steel beams, [a] water management system,” and a 100 square-meter grated floor (Random International). Visitors can walk around the grated floor and will quickly realize that they remain dry despite the turbulence of the falling water around them. Ten 3D tracking cameras and a “custom drop ceiling in the gallery made up of 1,600 tile-like squares, each packed tightly with 36 tiny sprinkler-nozzles releasing rain” make note of any human body that enter the installation by taking advantage of reflecting light, provided by a spotlight placed in the corner of the room (Vankin). Consequently, the water immediately above any visitor, in an approximately six-foot radius, will pause, leaving them dry as they roam around the wet, grated floor.
Rain Room involves both mechanism and computation. The path and continuous filtering of the water used in the installation requires thoughtful design in the physical setup and handling of the water. 3D cameras and custom software are used to create a reality that is both ordinary and unnatural. But the installation itself does not reveal its secrets. Computers in a back room control the computational facets of the installation and hide well away from the curious eyes of incoming visitors.
Random International
Context
Rain Room “can be seen as an amplified representation of our environment”. As a recreation of one of nature’s most common proclamation of its presence to humans, Rain Room illustrates how our interaction and relationship with nature is “increasingly mediated through technology” as it both exposes and protects visitors from the falling water (Random International). In the context of humanity’s increasing dependence on and evolution alongside technology, this installation provides a narrative for visitors to explore this trifold relationship between people, technology, and nature and questions how it will evolve in the near and far future.
Links
Sources
“Rain Room, 2012.” Random International. Random International, https://www.random-international.com/rain-room-2012/. Accessed 11 September 2018.
Vankin, Deborah. “First look inside LACMA’s Rain Room: an indoor storm where you won’t get wet…honest.” Los Angeles Times, 27 Oct. 2015, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-lacma-rain-room-20151028-story.html. Accessed 12 September 2018.
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