#text rain

[queenofcarrots]

Text Rain at childrens museum in Pittsburgh.

[notjoeler]

“text rain” by Achituv & Utterback, at smithsonian American Art Museum

[mega-special-projects-blog]

Text Rain - Camille Utterback

[openlabartists-blog]

Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv - Text Rain, 1999

[alexkwolfe]

throwbaaaack

one of my first processing scripts, recreating text rain. Going through my archives for ideas for beginner scripts to help teach a processing class.

[theelectricbeef-blog]

Thursday Think: Art Wants to Play

by Jody Stokes-Casey

Very recently I attended a gallery talk with the artist Camille Utterback at the Frist Center in Nashville. Utterback became known in the art world for her collaborative piece with Romy Achituv titled Text Rain which was a part of the exhibit. Text Rain is an interactive artwork involving a black and white camera, a projector, a poem, participants, and some very clever coding – of which I won't even pretend to have a strong grasp of understanding. 

 So what is it exactly? There is a camera in the center of the projected screen which feeds your image to the projector – it feels similar to standing in front of a mirror. The projector is also running the program of falling letters. The coding of the program allows the participant's projected image to “catch” the letters as they fall – if you can collect enough you may be able to make a word or phrase. The piece invites a sense of play and experimentation. Camille described watching a child enter the gallery with an umbrella. The child opened the umbrella and turned it upside down in hopes to collect the text. Others have used scarves or coats as a means to collect the letters and of course, toss them up to fall back down. (See the video to hear the artist explain and watch interaction with the work)

While it is difficult to “catch” all of the words in the poem to read them, Utterback's gesture prompts a few thought provoking ideas. The first of which is how to read into this relationship between the human body and semiotics such as text/language. The second idea being the thought of what makes this piece so special to art viewers today. Both thoughts are entwined in each of the artist's pieces.

We'll start with the first as many Electric Beef readers may find it quite interesting. The actual poem used for Text Rain can be read as rather erotic if one chooses to see it that way. It is an important point to not overlook that you use your body to be able to create the words that you read.  Click here to read “Talk, You,” by Evan Zimroth where the text from Text Rain was accrued.

The second point of why this work is significant to viewers in the contemporary world is most interesting. The artwork encourages people to interact with art in a way unlike traditional media has been able to do (so far). In the galleries adjacent to the Utterback installations was a vast collection of Dutch master paintings. While they are very beautiful, they can be (dare I say it) boring, especially to an audience used to the rapid speed and interactive nature of easily accessible technological devices. The juxtaposition of the two exhibits was quite interesting. Granted, it is very important to slow down to appreciate the details and beauty of such paintings.  Yet in the same respect it is crucial to realize that the invitation to participate in art is in demand from contemporary viewers. To put it in the words of Camille from her gallery talk, “Good art has an openness for the audience to react to.”

What do you think?

http://camilleutterback.com/

http://fristcenter.org/

My personal favorite piece in the exhibit referenced Abstract Expressionist painters Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in the fact that the work left signs of the artists'/participants' gestures.

http://camilleutterback.com/projects/untitled-6/ 

J. Stokes-Casey is currently working on her M.A. in Art History from the University of Memphis and has a background in visual arts and art education.

[kate-ink-blog]

One of the most canonized pieces of new media art is Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv’s Text Rain.

[n-e-a-t]

Text Rain (1999) By: Camille Utterback & Romy Archituv

Camille Utterback and Romy Archituv's Text Rain is an interactive installation in which observers become active participants as their own bodies become incorporated into the piece. The participants use the corporeal instrument of their bodies to begin to play with the falling letters that actuality do not really exist. The Text Rain installation calls for the participants stand and move in front of a large projection screen all the while colored letters are falling from above onto the body's black shadow. The text lands on the bodies; they can be caught, lifted, and/or continue to fall. Ultimately if the participant gathers enough letters on their shadow, the letters will begin to form words or phrases, even lines of a poem about bodies and language, as the falling letters are not at random. When the participants come to read the phrases they turn the Text Rain installation into both a physical as well as a mental exercise. 

Posted by: Lindsey Chu