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Random International is a London-based art collective and collaborative studio, founded in 2005. The group shot to prominence with its interactive ''
Rain Room ''Rain Room'' is a 2012 experiential artwork by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass of Random International, which found its first permanent installation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates in 2018. The piece had previously shown in a number of intern ...
'' art installation. Its work includes sculpture, performance and large-scale architectural installations. Two of its exhibition pieces have now become permanent installations, the first of which was the critically acclaimed and popular ''Rain Room'', now permanently housed in
Sharjah Sharjah (; ar, ٱلشَّارقَة ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area. Sharjah is the capital ...
, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The group was founded in 2005 by German artists Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass. Ortkrass graduated from the
Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It of ...
in London in 2005, while Koch graduated in 2004. Its experimentation with digital technologies has led to collaborations with Harvard roboticists on creating 'point studies' that reduce representation of the human form in motion into 15 light points, as well as with architects to create large scale public displays that include covering a German train station with LED lights.


Rain Room

''Rain Room'', now installed in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, was the first installation of a Random International project in a purpose-built, permanent structure. The work was previously shown at the
Barbican A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe In the Middle ...
, London (2012);
MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; ...
, New York (2013); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015) and
LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...
, Los Angeles (2015–2017). ''Rain Room'' allows visitors to the installation to walk through a downpour without getting wet. Motion sensors detect visitors' movements as they navigate through the darkened space, becoming "performers in this intersection of art, technology and nature". The work has been a celebrated
Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
theme: the photo and video sharing platform has been cited as a major source of Random International's popular recognition. In 2015, billionaire
Budi Tek Budiardjo 'Budi' Tek (27 October 1957 – 18 March 2022) was a Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneur, philanthropist and art collector, and the founder of the Yuz Foundation. Following a successful business career, Tek started collecting art works in 2 ...
, Yuz Museum's founder, announced he would build a 150 square metre ''Rain Room'' in
Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...
. The plan was shelved due to Tek's ill-health. A number of Chinese companies have copied the ''Rain Room'' concept and, in 2016, the Chinese Jiajiale Dream Park opened its $15 million ''Rain Room'' clone called the ''Magic Rain Zone''. One company offers as many as 12 clones of the installation. Koch estimated that as many as 8-10 companies had produced ''Rain Room'' clones.


Instant Structure for Schacht XII

The group's first outdoor installation was ''Tower: Instant Structure for Schacht XII,'' created for Urbane Künste Ruhr for the
Ruhrtriennale The Ruhrtriennale ( compound of ''Ruhr'' and ''triennale'' "lasting 3 years"), also known as Ruhr Triennale, was founded in 2002 and is a music and arts festival in the Ruhr-area of Germany which runs between mid-August and mid-October, and happen ...
 2013. The work cycled 30,000 litres of water per minute from the former coal mines of Zollverin, a World Heritage site, to create an instantaneous towering structure of water. The mines pump millions of water out each year to maintain the surrounding area's structural integrity.


Self & Other

The first permanent installation in the UK for Random International, ''Self & Other,'' is located on the
South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Albert ...
arts and cultural area of the
Albert Embankment Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albe ...
. It was launched in July 2018.


Swarm Studies

A series of works based on LED walls that mimic the flocking behavior of birds, fish, and insects, Random International's ''Swarm Studies'' have been created ranging from a small version, ''Swarm Study / XI,'' at the Park Hyatt New York's restaurant Bevy, to the huge ''Swarm Study / IX'', which spans the entire façade of the train station in Chemnitz, Germany—the group's largest installation at the time. The first of these studies, 2010's ''Swarm Light'' is in the collection of the Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation For Art in Michigan. Commissioned by London's V&A, ''Swarm Study / III'' consists of four cubic forms suspended from the ceiling, each made of a grid of illuminated brass rods. A camera tracks visitors, making the lights of the installation flicker, brighten, and dim in response to their movements.


Everything & Nothing

The group's first
solo exhibition A solo show or solo exhibition is an exhibition of the work of only one artist. The artwork may be paintings, drawings, etchings, collage, sculpture, or photography. The creator of any artistic technique may be the subject of a solo show. Other ...
in Asia, ''Everything & Nothing'', was on display at Shanghai's Yuz Museum from 20 April – 2 September 2018. The exhibition takes its title from the video installation, ''Everything & Nothing'' (2016), which attempts to question humankind's place in a technological dynamic by showing a steamroller crushing everything in its path. ''Everything & Nothing'' is the collective's first work to be created from video alone, a loop of over 6 hours. The piece was originally commissioned for the ''Wonder Materials'' exhibition at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, where it was displayed in 2016. ''Everything & Nothing'' "documents the simultaneous decay and progress of the industrialised world in an age of relentless transformation." The collective's newest work at the time of the exhibition was also displayed, ''Turnstiles'' (2018), an analogue piece which consists of a maze of barriers. ''Self & Other'', another exhibit, consists of a reflective wall of mirrors, light and glass which reflect the visitor taking a selfie. The exhibition also saw ''Rain Room'' return to the museum in a revised and larger format, 1,600 square feet (larger, in fact, than the Sharjah installation). '' Time Out'' Shanghai reviewed the exhibition saying, "''Everything & Nothing'' is a meditative video installation about how fucked we are in this age of un-tempered technological advancement. 'Turnstiles' tracks the same story, but instead with a matrix of spinny turnstiles that you can navigate while doing your best to avoid serious injury to the groin area."


Previous works

The group has previously held solo exhibitions at Lunds Konsthall, Sweden (2014), Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Paris (2012), and
Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art, modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, L ...
, New York (2016). Its work is held in the collections of MoMA,
Sharjah Art Foundation The Sharjah Art Foundation ( ar, مؤسسة الشارقة للفنون) is a contemporary art and cultural foundation based in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates, founded in 2009 by Hoor Al Qasimi, daughter of Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, a me ...
, Yuz Museum, LACMA and London's V&A, where its ''Swarm Study / III'' is on long-term display. In 2017, its work ''Zoological'' debuted at London's Roundhouse as part of Wayne McGregor's ''+/- Human''. The group's work has also formed part of the Lichtsicht Biennale (2015), Ruhrtriennale (2013), and Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011).


References

{{Reflist British installation artists Digital artists German installation artists