‘Rain Room’, an installation at the Barbican in London, has queue times currently advertised at six hours. When I went in December I arrived well before the opening time and had to wait for an hour or so, surrounded by mothers with babies, giggling teenage girls and men in suits. After being admitted, a friend and I walked slowly beneath the lines of artificial rain in the darkened gallery, hoping that the sheets of water would part for us. A group of soaking toddlers ran up and down the length of the installation, squealing. Drops of water fell in my face as I photographed my friend posing in the midst of the downpour.

Random International, the collective behind the installation, say that they want to use the piece to explore the behaviour of viewers. By ‘pushing people outside their comfort zones’ they hope to observe and play with the mechanisms of intuition. What is a child’s initial reaction? How does the mother respond when she sees her child run into the downpour? Are responses obvious or almost imperceptible? The work is essentially successful and popular because it is about people. Each viewer’s experience constitutes a sort of story, a narrative tracking of the ‘experiment’ taking place. It is also about lots of other things, such as technology, sculpture and the environment. It alludes to our increased ability to control the world around us as well as the conceptual interest in systems of the 1960s, making visual references from the threatening sci-fi world of ‘Blade Runner’ to that cheerful street-lit image from ‘Singing in the Rain’. My lasting memories, however, are of my own responses: my fingertips halting the rain as I follow in their tracks, or watching the strange shadows cast on the walls.

There has always been a demand for artwork that is fun and interactive, using the viewer (or ‘activator’) to begin a chain of thought or action. The ‘Curve’ gallery, which houses the ‘Rain Room’, has previously been host to a flock of zebra finches playing musical instruments (Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, 2010). And then the Hayward Gallery, which has put on a series of exhibitions based around dramatic and playful concepts such as ‘invisibility’, has been host to a boating lake on the roof (Gelitin, ‘Normally Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title’, 2008). Similarly, the turbine hall at the Tate Modern has presented a series of giant slides (Carsten Holler, ‘Test Site’, 2007) and a giant sun suspended far above the audience’s heads (Olafur Eliasson, ‘The Weather Project’, 2003). However, the ‘Rain Room’ seems to have surpassed all these other displays in popularity, or at least in the commitment to queuing it demands from the visitor. I wondered if this might be a sign that the trend has become more marked, and that works which favour narrative, an experiential aspect and action are growing in popularity, at least in prominent public art commissions and exhibitions. It is a way to satisfy demands for accessibility, guaranteeing an audience, while still presenting genuinely interesting artists and artworks to the public.

On the other hand, there is a danger that accessibility can be privileged over quality. If you have a choice between an interesting artwork that will take careful consideration to understand, and therefore perhaps be paid less attention, or one that is immediately impressive and exciting, but lacks depth, which would you choose? The Hayward Gallery’s latest exhibition ‘Light Show’ at times seems to adopt the latter approach. The show focuses on a broad selection of work from the last few decades that all feature, um, light. During our visit, my companion and I decided that we weren’t sure what exactly some of the works were meant to be about. ‘That one looks more like something you’d have at a party. Maybe with a stripper inside it,’ my friend commented, pointing at Leo Villareal’s ‘Cylinder II’ (2012), a tall column made up of LEDs flashing down a series of slim metal rods. The work claimed to evoke a variety of landscapes, such as a starry night sky or street lamps at dusk, though I struggled to see them in the blinking lights. Olafur Eliasson’s display of miniature strobe-lit shoots of water (‘Model for a Timeless Garden’, 2011) was similarly hard to consider in depth after its initial impressive impact. Accounts of ‘The Weather Project’ described it as ‘powerful’, ‘disturbing’ and ‘primeval’ (see Guardian and Telegraph reviews), qualities which were only hinted at in the more recent work. 

These works seemed to lack depth particularly when seen beside some of the more successful ones, such as Cerith Wyn Evans’s S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E (‘Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill …’) (2010) which demonstrated that light-based works could have substance beneath the flashing and strobing. The piece presented three columns made of outdated light fixtures, giving out a discernible halo of warmth around them as they glowed and faded rhythmically. Despite originally being functional objects, the elongated filament bulbs were oddly sculptural, making an interesting point about the qualities of functional domestic or practical objects. The work also involved the viewer in an unexpected and subtle sensory way that was ultimately more intriguing. Similarly, Anthony McCall’s ‘You and I Horizontal’ (2005) used light in a more graphic and sculptural way. Using simple line projections McCall creates light works that seem solid and alive, emphasising that light exists and acts in ways that we do not expect. Most striking was the spatial aspect of the work, and that fact that it could be negotiated by the viewer in space as they walked around and through it.

Despite their subtleties, both of the above works involve the viewer or user in a direct and immediate way. Each person to experience the work is implicated in creating a sort of narrative describing how an environment exists and functions: the viewer can be said to complete the works. On the other hand, works that demonstrate an interest in human experience and narrative through other means can remain equally immersive and resonant. Telling a story about people, through video, performance or any other means can be accessible while remaining intelligent. It can also involve the viewer indirectly: for example, once the viewer leaves the work they may be changed in an almost imperceptible way. The impact may not be any less great, even if the work is apparently less interactive.

Several of the works in the Turner Prize exhibition this year were engaging and accessible for similar reasons as those described at the Hayward gallery, but in very different ways: there were people in action and stories being told, but mediated through screen or performance. The video of the winner, Elizabeth Price (‘The Woolworths Choir of 1979’, 2012), related a sequence of ‘things’ (objects, places, people) curiously linked by a curving gesture or sign, and backed by music from girl band the Shangri-Las that made shivers run down my spine. A building burnt down, people sang and clapped and flashes of church architecture appeared on the screen, but none of it felt irrelevant or incongruous, perhaps because this abstract story was told so confidently and compellingly. Strong emotions were created without the artist being sentimental or even explicit about what exactly she was trying to say. Luke Fowler’s ‘All Divided Selves’ (2011) also used archive footage and bizarre juxtapositions of imagery to create a narrative about one man, R. D. Laing, and how he influenced others, as well as the wider world. The psychiatrist, known to the public indirectly and especially through his writing, was presented as a human with weaknesses in what was a compellingly strange yet moving portrayal. I found myself gripped and moved by the Turner Prize exhibition to a much greater extent than the ‘Light Show’, despite the fact that it was much less ‘fun’ and involved the viewer in a much less obvious way. This was what first made me ask the question, what does it take for art for an exhibition to be accessible and interesting? I would challenge anyone not to be intrigued by Elizabeth Price’s video.

On the other hand, I don’t think all art should be accessible, involving and compelling in the same way as much of the work I’ve described above. It’s sometimes interesting to see something that is oblique and understated that I don’t really understand at all. However, while art galleries want and need visitors from all walks of life, which they should and will, there is a range of ways to draw people in while still treating them as intelligent and interested. The strategies described above are probably only a selection. In the end, art is always in some way about the viewer, and it is up to the viewer to see things and to be amused, moved, saddened, gladdened etc. Or else what is the point?