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Random International’s popular experiential Rain Room travels across the world to the Yuz Museum Shanghai. Johnny Tucker pays a visit and tries not to get soaked

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Yuz Museum Shanghai
Until 31 December

Rain Room is fast on its way to becoming a worldwide 'phenomenon' according to Indonesian-born entrepreneur Budi Tek - and he should know, as he's just bought one and will be touring it around a good part of the globe himself.

Tek's Rain Room has just opened at the Yuz Museum Shanghai in the Shanghai West Bund area that is now beginning to bristle with galleries.

This version of the Rain Room, which is 50 per cent bigger than its two previous versions, will stay a while in Shanghai before heading to Beijing in the spring, as part of a long, VW-sponsored tour through China and other parts of Asia. It will find its final permanent resting place in Tek's sculpture park in Bali.

Rain Room operates like a limited-edition print. There are now four versions and its creator, Random International, has decided there will be another four before it calls time on its creation. As a part of the bid for status of global phenomenon, a Rain Room also opens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) this winter.

It all began with the Rain Room at The Barbican in 2012. As someone who regularly visits and walks through the building I'd say the queues were unprecedented, and I have not seen their like since.

The concept is a simple one - a room full of rain with a bright light at one end. You walk through the rain room and, miraculously, the rain stops where you are and you don't get wet. Except you do. If you try to walk through it too quickly you'll get very wet indeed. Rain Room controls you and starts to modify your behaviour. Like a rat getting electric shocks, you learn that if you walk more slowly you have a much better chance of staying dry. The room watches you with a raft of sensors and then it bends you to its will - do what it requires or get soaked.

Ironically, the version that opened in Shanghai did so during almost continuous torrential downpours in which you got soaked no matter how quickly or slowly you walked through the city.

Random International was founded by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, who met at Brunel University before going on to study at the Royal College of Art, in London. They created Rain Room as an exploration of the relationship between man, machine and environment. The element of surveillance and control on the individual looms large in their minds, but its visitors seem to take it in a very different way. It's a little like designing playground equipment -- those pesky kids never use it in the way that was expected.

The queues at the Barbican were cacophonous with children and its perception as family entertainment cannot be denied. It's perhaps no use Koch insisting that 'Rain Room is not a funhouse', because that's exactly how many (though not all) perceive it. They have created it and now it has a life of its own.

It is being also recontextualised as it roams around. In particular, something that started during its time at MoMA in New York, it's taking on an environmental message about the use of water. This was pushed in Shanghai - not by the artists it should be noted - and is no doubt set to resurface when it opens in drought-stricken California at the beginning of November.

'I think that's something that we are happy to observe if people want to contextualise it like that [environmentally] as long as it's authentic,' says Outkrass, going on to add, 'Our reasons for making this work are not detached from this, but they're different. They start with us in the middle and the human perspective and how we engage with machines.' Koch chimes in: 'We don't suddenly change our story about how it started, but other people have their own take on it. The wider context has become more interesting. Essentially, this is a big surveillance machine - and so putting that into China and seeing how people deal with that was interesting. We realise that we shouldn't overplay this as really it's a very immersive environment, but it does put it in a different perspective and take it away from being this selfie-machine thing, which is good.'

The way people interact with the piece has been a constant source of interest to the duo and its installation in the highly controlled environment of China's most populated city was always going to be fascinating for Random International.

'Although people were told to split up,' says Koch, 'what was really interesting for us was that people tended to stay in a large group creating large dry areas. Also, there were other people who would just walk through it really fast and get wet and think, "Oh, it's not working."' Outkrass seems to hold a respect for these individuals adding: 'In a way, they were fearless.'

Four iterations in and with four to go, I question whether Rain Room might not become something of an albatross for Random International. Are they not worried they will become typecast as the Rain Room boys? The denial is quick, heartfelt and believable: 'Not at all, it has been enabling - it has allowed us to do all sorts of other things, from durational performances with musician Max Richter to an artist's residency at Harvard,' says Koch. 'So, it was actually nice to be able to revisit Rain Room after two years and look even more closely at these man-machine relationships.'