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Camille Utterback

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Text Rain
Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv, 1999
 
Text Rain is an interactive installation in which participants use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist. In the Text Rain installation participants stand or move in front of a large projection screen. On the screen they see a mirrored video projection of themselves in black and white, combined with a color animation of falling letters. Like rain or snow, the letters appears to land on participants' heads and arms. The letters respond to the participants' motions and can be caught, lifted, and then let fall again. The falling text will 'land' on anything darker than a certain threshold, and 'fall' whenever that obstacle is removed. If a participant accumulates enough letters along their outstretched arms, or along the silhouette of any dark object, they can sometimes catch an entire word, or even a phrase. The falling letters are not random, but form lines of a poem about bodies and language. 'Reading' the phrases in the Text Rain installation becomes a physical as well as a cerebral endeavor.

Quicktime Documentation (13 mb, 320x240)
Quicktime Documentation (5 mb, 160x120)

 

Partial Exhibition List:

    Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain. 2007

    Time Warner Center, New York, NY. 2006

    Itaú Cultural Center, São Paulo, Brazil. 2006

    Austria at ARCO, Medialab Madrid, Conde Duque Cultural Center, Madrid, Spain. 2006

    WRO International Media Art Biennale, The National Museum, Wroclaw, Poland. 2005

    La Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT), Montréal, Canada. 2004

    LiteraturWERKstatt, Kulturforum, Berlin, Germany. 2004

    The Lighthouse, Brighton, United Kingdom. 2002

    Taiwan Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan. 2001

    Kiev International Media Art Festival, Center for Contemporary Art, Kiev, Ukraine. 2001

    Microwave International Media Art Festival, Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong. 2001

    WRO Biennale, WRO Center for Media Art, Wroclaw, Poland. 2001

    Montevideo / Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2000

    Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria. 2000 - 2002

    Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea. 2000

    European Media Art Festival 2000, Osnabruck, Germany. 2000

    NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan. 2000

    Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY. 2000

    New Langton Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2000

 

Awards:

    OLB media art prize at the European Media Art Festival. 2000

 

Collections:

    Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain.
    Ken Freed, Boston, Masachusetts, USA.
    Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

 

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