“This is so cool,” senior Amy Hodorek said.
Both students and nonstudents assembled at the event.
“We had plans and we just wanted to walk around our beautiful campus and then our professor texted us saying that they’re lighting up the brain,” John Kyle Rillera, a sophomore, said.
Dr. David and Suzanne Pfenninger, IU alumni, donated the money in order to add the lighting to the sculpture.
“We were happy to give back to our alma mater,” ?he said.
Pfenninger said the only thing he asked for in funding was that it would be called “Consiousness.”
The speech began by moving everyone in the crowd closer to the sculpture and greeting those who attended. It consisted of several different contributors discussing the background of the brain sculpture, many brain and lighting puns and thanking both the donors and ?designers.
“Such a wonderful work of art deserves 24-hour display,” Pfenninger said.
He decided to sponsor the project with his wife a few weeks after the brain was displayed in 2013.
“What I had wanted Rob Shakespeare to do was to light this thing up so it reflects the brain, especially at night,” ?he said.
Rob Shakespeare was the brain behind the lighting design. He is also known for building the Light Totem outside of the IU Art Museum and is currently working on a project in South Bend.
“I was given a ?directive: psychedelic,” ?Shakespeare said.
“It’s more fun coming back to Bloomington after you graduate than it is when you’re down there,” Pfenninger said. “It’s a different kind of fun, but it’s really ?more fun.”
After the success of drawing people to the brain sculpture, the donors said they hope to draw more students to come and visit the sculpture with the addition of the ?lighting.
“We want people to come here, hang out and think about the mind,” ?Pfenninger said.
The lighting is programmed in ways that will be conscious to the seasons, looking different around the year with lights that are supposed to last 100,000 hours.
There are sensors in the lighting that detect when people are nearby, which caused the lighting to change fast at the reveal with about 200 people surrounding the sculpture.
Shakespeare said he wanted people to come back when it was empty around the sculpture to get a better ?reaction from the lights.
Framed designs of the brain sculpture and the outside of the psychology building with added color were given to both the Pfenningers and the Shakespeares ?as thanks.
“The Light Totem has got its tradition with feet up the wall and it will be really interesting to see what happens with this,” Shakespeare said.
