TextRain is a playful interactive installation that blurs the boundary between the familiar and the magical. Participants in the TextRain installation use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist.

The falling letters are not random, but rather lines of a poem about body and language. As letters from one line of the poem fall towards the ground they begin to fade, and differently coloured letters from the next line begin to fall from above. “Reading” the poem in the TextRain installation, if participants can do so at all, becomes a physical rather than cerebral endeavor.

Text Rain links the behavior of abstract virtual symbols to the physical movements of human bodies. In TextRain the physical dialogue that takes place is completely familiar. The falling letters respond to participants\' movements following the natural rules of rain or snow.

Camille Utterback (USA) is a media artist working at the intersection of computation, representation, and interaction. Her interactive installations have been exhibited internationally at venues including Postmasters Gallery in New York, the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, The European Media Art Festival in Osnabruck, Germany, and Media City Seoul 2000. She is currently an Interval Research Fellow and an adjunct Professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program.

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Romy Achituv (USA) creates work in both “New” and “Old” Media. Most recent projects include installations and experimental work exhibited at the InterCommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo, Japan, Postmasters Gallery, NYC, European Media Art Festival (EMAF), Osnabrück, and Media City Seoul 2000. Most recent grants and awards include two years’ consecutive project support from the Greenwall Foundation, a grant from The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, an OLB Media Art Prize at European Media Art Festival 2000, and a 2000 I.D. Interactive Media Design Review award.

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