Random International is a collaborative group of artists based in London and Berlin that we first met through Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery with their fantastic and interactive piece You Fade to Light c. 2009. They’ve consistently produced evocative work and are perhaps now best known for their travelling installation Rain Room, which exhibited in 2012 in London, at MoMA in NY in 2013, and in Shanghai in 2015.
Rain Room is an environment of falling water through which it is possible to walk, trusting that a path can be navigated, without being drenched in the process. As you progress through the space the sound of water and a suggestion of moisture fill the air, before you are confronted by this carefully choreographed downpour that responds to your movements and presence.
Rain Room opened at LACMA most recently. In Los Angeles, where the issue of drought has been omnipresent, the exhibit struck a different sort of cord! There was concern that this artwork uses water freely in a place where water restriction has been a “way of life” for years. But, to clarify, artists Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass use the same amount of water as a standard household would go through in 1 day.
Rain Room is open now through April 24, 2016, click here for more information.
To experience “Rain Room, only 10-15 people are allowed inside at a time into the 2,500-square-foot windowless room.
Image courtesy of: My Modern Met
Ahh… the power of “controling the weather”
Image courtesy of: My Modern Met
Artists Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass fiercely guard all the pertinent details in order to preserve “the magic”. Amazingly, each spot gets roughly a 5-foot radius of dryness. This explains why the amount of people in the room at a time is limited… if it gets overly crowded, the rain would halt completely!
Image courtesy of: Digital Trends
