Art & Astrophysics with Camille Utterback & Risa Wechsler

In the Season 2 premiere of Art &, we meet Camille Utterback—an artist whose large-scale interactive installations probe how data, bodies, and perception intertwine—and Risa Wechsler, a cosmologist mapping the unseen structure of the universe and Director of Stanford’s new Center for Decoding the Universe. Their collaboration began inside Stanford’s new Computing and Data Science building, CoDa, where Camille’s artwork Fathom arcs across five stories of glass and light, and now extends into a multi-year project supported by a Humanities Seed Grant.In this conversation, Camille and Risa trace the origins of Fathom’s “astronomy panel,” which blends ancient star charts with cutting-edge dark-matter simulations from Risa’s lab. They walk us through their newest effort: building tools that help artists and students work with astronomical datasets—especially the massive nightly stream of images soon to arrive from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time. For both of them, the project is a question of scale: how do we make data that is vast, abstract, or machine-parsed feel tangible again?Together, Camille, Risa, and Ellen explore what becomes possible when art and science move in tandem—how visualizing the rhythms of the cosmos can deepen our sense of inquiry, expand how we understand information, and create new pathways for public engagement. As we look toward a future where enormous datasets shape how we see the world, their work offers a powerful model: interdisciplinary collaboration as a way to restore wonder, sharpen understanding, and invite more people into the act of discovery.Featured Guest: Camille Utterback & Risa WechslerFollow Stanford Arts on Instagram and YouTube for more stories and updates.Read more about Fathom in the Stanford Report: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/04/art-installation-computing-data-science-building-camille-utterback CreditsHost: Ellen OhCreator/Producer/Editor: Taylor JonesProduction Support: Edi DaiSound Designer and Mix Engineer: Chase EverettTheme song and Music: Juana IzuzquizaExecutive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne ShulockArtwork: Connie Ko

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