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The Immersive Experience of Catherine Widgery's "Interface"

May 03, 2024

Author: Monet Butler

Catherine Widgery, a specialist in site-specific public art, brought her expertise to the Iowa State University Student Innovation Center. With over forty years of experience and fifty-plus projects, Widgery helped create both interior and exterior components for the building, which opened in 2020 as a “bold experiment to change the face of education.” Installed in 2021, Interface reflects the interplay of nature and the built world, inspired in part by Widgery’s childhood journey past rivers and steel mills.

 

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The interior component of Interface, at the Student Innovation Center’s west entrance, features pleated dichroic glass that reflects and refracts light, creating shifting colors and multiple reflections. Visitors see a spectrum of “selves” representing potential growth through innovation and learning. The changing light mirrors how ideas and perspectives evolve with time, experience, and environment.

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The exterior component of Interface, suspended in the second-floor courtyard, features copper screens with a pierced chevron pattern echoing the pleated glass inside. Floating on thin wires, the panels form a canopy reminiscent of a forest seen from above or below. Thousands of LEDs respond to wind measured by an anemometer, dimming or brightening to visualize air movement. This integration of nature and technology reflects Widgery’s goal of creating accessible, interactive public art.

 Photo taken from the Student Innovation Center courtyard looking up at the suspended copper panels with cutout chevron pattern and L E D lights.

When combined, these two parts of one installation create an immersive experience that encourages each individual passing through the Student Innovation Center to reexamine the crossroads of nature and technology. The building hosts many different technologies, from 3D printing to a glass blowing studio, but the core focus is innovation and collaboration. Widgery’s Interface is not only an interface between technology and nature, but also encourages the interface of collaboration and innovation.

Monet Butler
University Museums 2024 Pohlman Fellow
ISU Class of 2026 | Political Science


Interface, 2021
Catherine Widgery (American b. 1953)
Location: Student Innovation Center
Iowa Art in State Buildings project for the Student Innovation Center. Commissioned by the University Museums and the Student Innovation Center. In the Art on Campus Collection, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
U2021.14