As rAndom International puts it, their creative output is ultimately a series of social experiments. They’re interested in providing a framework/conditions that induce physical, emotional, and psychic effects from those who are present and engaging with the work, demanding that they re-act. In this sense, the creators are as voyeuristic as they are ingenuitive; they want to see
what you do more than the other way around. So what is it like? Well, as 1,000 litres of water falls everywhere except on you each and every minute, Rain Room facilitates an abundance of responses, which are likely to change depending on who else is in the exhibit with you; both the Barbican and MoMA list the capacity as between 8 and 10 at a time, so if it’s you and a gaggle of 7 year-olds, well, just imagine. Sophie Risner, of WhiteHot Magazine, discusses the precarious negotiation of trust that Rain Room demands of its inhabitants. As viewers enter, they’re instructed to “walk-slowly” (3D sensors aren’t without their own lag time), so the question that inevitably mantras itself in the mind of visitor then becomes, “how fast is too fast?” When VernissageTV interviewed visitors in London, several teenagers admitted to trying to ‘outwit’ the system, dodging from one location to another to see if the rain might impede their trajectory (it did). But whatever your experience, the point is, you decidedly construct it. It’s your own. So own it. For more information visit: www.momaps1.org/expo1