Text Rain

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Description (in English): 

"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."

(Source: http://camilleutterback.com/projects/text-rain/)

Critical writing that references this work:

Title Author Yearsort descending
Unusual Positions: Embodied Interaction with Symbolic Spaces Camille Utterback 2004
Playable Media and Textual Instruments Noah Wardrip-Fruin 2005
Digital Gestures Carrie J. Noland 2006
Born Digital: Writing Poetry in the Age of New Media Maria Engberg 2007
Is the Future of Electronic Literature the Future of the Literary? N. Katherine Hayles 2007
Digital Word in a Palm: Digital Poetry between Reading and immersive Bodily Experience Janez Strehovec 2007
Teaching Digital Literature within a “Research and Teaching Partnership” in a Transatlantic Blended Learning Environment Patricia Tomaszek 2008
Digitale Medien in der Erlebnisgesellschaft. Kunst, Kultur, Utopien Roberto Simanowski 2008
Electronic literature or digital art? And where are all the challenging hypertextual novels? Gitte Mose 2009
Artificial Poetry: On Aesthetic Perception in Computer-Aided Literature Peter Gendolla 2009
Travels in Cybertextuality. The Challenge of Ergodic Literature and Ludology to Literary Theory Markku Eskelinen 2009
Reading the Discursive Spaces of Text Rain, Transmodally Francisco J. Ricardo 2009
Reassembling the Literary: Toward a Theoretical Framework for Literary Communication in Computer-Based Media Jörgen Schäfer 2010
"No Preexistent World": On "Natural" and "Artificial" Forms of Poetry Peter Gendolla 2010
Chuva de letras: de presenças, ausências de literatura digital Luciana Gattass 2010
Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres 2010
Understanding New Media Art Through Close Reading. Four Remarks on Digital Hermeneutics Roberto Simanowski 2010
Aesthetic Animism: Digital Poetry as Ontological Probe David Jhave Johnston 2011
Digital Literature: Theoretical and Aesthetic Reflections Luciana Gattass 2011
Comedies of Separation: Toward a Theory of the Ludic Book Brian Kim Stefans 2011
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Eric Dean Rasmussen