Camille Utterback (Stanford University)

Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Designing for Humans – an Artist’s Perspective

How might we more specifically and subtly respond to our embodied reality using interaction design? Could our computationally based systems represent deeper and more specific histories?  What are the possibilities for incorporating richer materiality even while designing for the digital world? Artist Camille Utterback will explore these issues as themes running through her large body of award winning interactive installation work. She will also show behind the scenes looks and offer design tips she has learned in her many years developing large scale public artworks.

About the Speaker

Camille Utterback is an internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in the field of digital and interactive art. Her work combines innovative technology, elegant design, and surprising situations to reconnect us to our physicality, to each other, and to the world around us.

Since her well known Text Rain video tracking installation, created in 1999 with Romy Achituv, Utterback has created artwork using live camera data and software code, exploring the intersection of physical gestures and computational systems. For many years, Utterback has also integrated works into architectural spaces–activating sites such as hand railings and elevator call buttons to shift people’s temporal experience of a shared physical site. Her newest work combines projection mapping with custom glass panels and hand blown glass to explore the potential for display surfaces that address the subtleties of our depth perception.

Utterback’s extensive exhibit history includes more than fifty shows on four continents. Notable awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2009), and a US Patent (2001). Her work is in the collections of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Orange County Museum of Art, The La Caixa Foundation (Spain), Itau Cultural (Brazil), 21C Museum (Louisvillle, KY), The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, and of many private individuals. Recent large scale commissions include works for Liberty Mutual Group, Boston, MA (2013), and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (2015).

Utterback earned her BA in Art from Williams College, and a Masters degree from The Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University and is represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco.