"What do you do with a rain room?"
That simple yet intriguing question was one of the driving factors behind London-based artists rAndom International—founded by Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass, and Hannes Koch—creating their immersive spectacle Rain Room.
Initially appearing at the Barbican in London, where it became the most successful installation in their history, it's now currently in its second iteration, appearing in New York at MoMA as part of MoMA PS1's EXPO 1: New York.
The piece lets visitors walk inside a room that's pouring down with water, but as they walk around it ceases to fall where they're standing allowing them a glimpse into what it's like to control the rain.
People have reacted to the experience in a variety of different ways, snapping the piece on their smartphones is a common one, but people also huddle together or stand alone, wander around as if in a dream or giggle excitedly.
The nature of Rain Room and the unusualness of the experience means it fosters a variety of reactions and engagement from the audience—and it's these interactions that place it beyond just an installation into a performative piece.
Each iteration has been built as a site-specific piece, for instance the Barbican version made use of the curved wall of the exhibition space while the MoMA iteration is in a much larger area. This gave the studio a chance to experiment with how it was presented and play around with how it was approached, giving the piece another dimension as it evolves to fit different environments.
In the video above the group discuss the genesis of the installation, along with how the creation of the piece was, for them, a journey into the unknown driven by curiosity.
Rain Room is on view at MoMA, as part of MoMA PS1's EXPO 1: New York through 28th July 2013.