At the heart of the new Computing and Data Science (CoDa) building, five triangular panels of glass catch and reflect light throughout the building’s five-story windowed stairwell. However, they also reflect something deeper: Each of the hand-painted and etched panels that comprise Fathom depicts a different example of encoded data. After dark, motion-sensing cameras allow computer-generated animations on the panels to react to the movements of people passing by. 

Installation artist Camille Utterback, associate professor of art and art history and, by courtesy, of computer science, hopes the richly textured qualities of the glass and the dynamic elements of the work prompt moments of contemplation for those working or studying in the building. 

“The glass looks completely different with the sunlight illuminating the colored glass versus when the projections play through the surfaces at night,” said Utterback. “I hope the layers and textures of the glass and how the light shifts and changes through the triangles as you move help folks remember how rich and complicated the physical world is compared to our flat computer screens. It’s a mistake to forget that our data is always encoded in materials with real physical characteristics and histories.” 

Since first installing Fathom’s panels in the new CoDa building in January, Utterback has been fine-tuning the responsive animations on each panel to make sure the imagery is legible from close range inside the building and also when seen from Jane Stanford Way. The projections are visible daily from sunset to midnight.

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“The idea with the live camera input that reacts to movement is to allow viewers to stop and discover that there are even deeper layers of imagery if they spend time engaging,” she said. “For me, this is a metaphor for spending time trying to “fathom” anything in our world. Understanding is a process that happens over time. We have to engage and look deeply and use our bodies, no matter what we try to understand in the world around us.” 

Utterback worked with independent creative technologist Charlotte McElwain to create the custom software driving the artwork. Her goal with the dynamic, ongoing animations is to share the many rich histories of data encoding she researched for the commission, much of which was sourced from Stanford labs and collections. 

Integrating the arts into the university’s built environment and academic mission has been a priority of several programs under the Stanford Arts umbrella, led by Deborah Cullinan, vice president for the arts. This includes the Public Art Committee that she co-chairs with David Lenox, university architect and executive director of campus planning. In 2023, the committee worked with a group of faculty set to be based in CoDa to review proposals for a permanent work of art in the new building. The goal was to commission artwork that employed data-based and computational techniques that would be researched and taught there. 

The committee chose Utterback’s interactive installation proposal for its use of dynamic computational systems, its bold presence in the architectural design, and its representation of many cultural and technical histories that contribute to Stanford’s research and community at the intersection of data science, computer science, and symbolic systems. The artwork is a gift from Sky and Arwen Dayton. 

“Camille embodies the interdisciplinary innovation that is a hallmark of Stanford, and I’m grateful to the many collaborators across campus who have helped bring her distinctive vision to life,” said Cullinan. “Fathom is a beautiful demonstration of what’s possible when we infuse art and creativity into the educational experience and daily life of this university.” 

In the future, Utterback plans to offer studio art courses in which new animations are created for some of the triangles. “The curriculum will teach students to create dynamically generated animations, explore how these could be based on live data or sourced from research on campus, and consider what makes compelling artwork when using these elements,” she said. “I’m excited to use the custom glass and interactive infrastructure I’ve developed for Fathom as a platform for ongoing explorations.” 

Utterback has received a Humanities Seed Grant with McElwain and Risa Wechsler, professor of physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences, to create new animations for Fathom’s Models of the Universe panel based on the live nightly astronomical data streaming from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) coming online this fall.