audrey penven

The full set is here.

I am in love with the process of making art. I come up with a process without knowing what will to come out of it. At times, it's a game - stacking as many variables or complications as I can, wondering what will happen at the end of it. Will be be good? Will it be a disaster? Either outcome is *interesting.* Either way, I've learned something. The final piece is incidental. It's an artifact of a conceptual process. So far, I've happily embraced this concept.

Then, something happened. I started working on Syzygryd. The look of the piece is pretty much fixed. Instead of knowing the process and working with it until something interesting falls out, I'm working towards a very specific endpoint. The method of getting to that endpoint is what's undefined. The path is what needs to be figured out. And it doesn't really matter what that path is, as long as it works. After diving into Solidworks (CAD software) and that sketchy space between CAD and reality, I remembered the divine thrill of necessity-driven quick learning. With the dusty deadline coming closer, there's no time to wait until I'm fluent in the software. No second-guessing. No space to feel like I should hand this task off to someone more competent. There are no experts - no one's ever built Syzygryd before. This is at once reassuring and terrifying.

I used to cling to the belief that if I knew the outcome, I wasn't interested. What I'm learning is that the path to a known end can be just as fascinating as the exploring a fixed path to an unknown end.

Once Syzygryd is done, and I've washed off the (nimby or playa) dust, I'll try adopting a similar technique photographically. I can't wait to see what happens.

from a test shoot with Trista Musco and projections of her art.

Things happened today! Today is the day that I accidentally joined the Fabrication Team for Syzygryd. I also took photos.

This is a tube being cut by a large bandsaw.

This is the shop full of tubes.

This is NIMBY being very full of projects.

This is Slim doing one of the curved cuts on the tube with the plasma cutter.

The rest of the photos for the build so far are here.

Stripmall Architecture came to my new studio space for a shoot at the end of April. The photos have been online for a few weeks, but life got full of things. Now I'm finally writing about it.

We did some simple photos against a white backdrop, with the idea that the white areas can be filled with drawings. For the rest of the photos, we used a projector as the light source. We used a drawing by Jody Pham (she did the cover of their new album) and a pattern of dots. It also did great things for silhouettes and backlighting. I'm thoroughly convinced that a projector needs to be part of the permanent photo studio setup.

Looking through the photographs at the end of this, I see accidental beautiful things that can feed future projects. I feel incredibly fortunate to work with such wonderful collaborators.

The full set of photos is here.

On April 8th, I had the honor of photographing this performance by Sadie Lune and Lula Mae Day.

Sadie's description of the performance:

An ‘availabilist’ performance art installation investigating intimacy, shame and the blessed beast of huge love.
A sequence of interactive games, symbiotic rituals and swell treats traveling through the theater space.
This show is the completion of an AIRspace Residency
part of the ongoing project Teaching Myself to Love

more on her site.

Unwoman just released her new album, Casualties. This is super exciting for a few reasons. For one, her music is awesome. I’ve already listened to it a bunch of times, and I love it so much. On a personal note, I’m thrilled to see my photographs on the CD packaging. And, the liner notes feature photographs by the super talented Neil Girling. My first album cover! Hooray!

So, I’ve taken a few photos of this object. Here they are:

I also want to share the lighting setup I used for this. About halfway through turning my laptop on its side, I realized that what I was doing was slightly ridiculous. It totally worked though. One side lit by a pile of christmas lights, the other by a blank white photoshop document.

Both rolls happened to be from Praha. Half of one of them was shot in Amsterdam. So, here's Amsterdam:

And here's the Praha set again, with some new photos:

After the fireworks finally tapered off in Berlin, we said our goodbyes and rode the train to Praha. This is not the first roll of film I shot there, just the first one I've developed. This is from whatever day Slim, Rubin and I went to see David Cerny's installation piece on the TV Tower in Zizkov.

Slim and I took a long walk through Old Town to get back to our hostel.

Encountered this sculpture, inspired by Kafka's "Description of a Struggle."

Then we went to the Cross Club. Slim and I sat at a table on the balcony made of machine parts and rebar. I finished this roll of film, reloaded the camera, and then we joined the rest of the crowd on the dancefloor.

the rest of the set is here.

It was Fall, 2008, about a year and a half ago. Star St. Germain had her birthday celebration at the Madonna Inn. The participants were all photographers, models, or both. Each room, a temporary photography studio. My photographs are from the red room with Star and Miss Mary Bee.