Camille L. Utterback, Class of 1992

Technology and art, mind and body, viewer and object, virtual and real – the spaces between all these apparent dichotomies come into play throughout your work. Writing computer code as a way of “sculpting the medium,” you have pioneered the development of interactive art, resulting not only in patents and iPad apps but in installations around the world and, not surprisingly, a MacArthur Foundation Grant. Your “Liquid Time Series” uses viewers’ changing positions in the galleries to project images of both space and time. “Aurora Organ” translates small gestures into animated architectural-scale patterns of light. “Abundance” transformed the movement of people through San Jose’s City Hall Plaza into abstract images projected onto the building’s three-story rotunda. And in “Text Rain” the projected dance-like movements of viewer/artists appear to catch descending letters, forming words and phrases buoyed by those gestures, giving magical new meaning to the term body language. This work is all very much for our time, as artists no less than philosophers explore what it means in the digital age for humans to connect with machines and each other. In recognition of your distinguished achievement in interactive art, Williams College is proud to honor you with its Bicentennial Medal.