ROBOT//DOG
2024, 10min 30sec, VideoLead Artist: Sophie Penkethman-Young
Cinematography: Tyron Seeto
Sound: Alister Hill
Mixdown: Jonboy
Comissioned by Verge Gallery, Sydney
Robot//Dog is a kaleidoscopic video essay on humans, dogs, AI and the multitudes they all contain. I’m not joking.
A dog is not a real animal, no really! We made dogs, we selectively breed them, plucking out the pliant ones and then we program them. We program them to assist us crossing the street, to hunt down wrong doers, cuddle us at night, and make us look attractive to prospective partners. The dogs work for the state, they work for the airports, they work for the farmers, they work for the family. The dogs come up to us at the cafe and lick our fingers joyfully, the dogs come up to us at the train station and smell us accusingly.
The dogs are made of flesh, the dogs are made of wires, the dogs are at the museum and the fashion show. We know that there are good dogs and bad dogs and that the way we train them impacts the way they turn out. If we know that dogs can be all these things then maybe we can hold that complexity for other programmable beings.
It is hard to hold ambiguity, especially for things that are innocuous and all around us. But we can hold it for dogs.
WATCH HERE
IN PROGRESS: THE WAIT OF EXPECTATION
Lead Artist + Performer: Sophie Penkethman-YoungTechnician + Collaborator: Charlie Kember
Dramaturg: Harriet Gillies
Score: Andy Garvey + Ali Wan Hill
Technical Guidence: Solomon Thomas
Special thanks to Emma O’Neill
In Progress: The Wait of Expectation is a diary-like live video essay that looks at the techno-psychology of the loading bars and digital icons that placate us as we wait for our apps to load and our technology to come online. This witty digital performance examines what loading means and how its personality, quirks, smell and function have changed over time. The tumbling hourglass, the UberEats animation, the spinning wheel of death: all of these symbols seduce us into a spell that suggests progress is being made. However, they are a gateway into a false economy.
Part MTV TRL showtime, part vaporwave mumblecore dystopia, In Progress: The Wait of Expectation is a deeply personal work that celebrates these tiny constructed moments of calm and questions our need for them.
In Progress: The Wait of Expectation was commissioned by Performance Space. In Progress: The Wait of Expectation was is supported by the New South Wales Goverment through the Create NSW Small Projects Grant. In Progress: The Wait of Expectation is supported by the Creative Practice Lab, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW Sydney. This project was supported through a residency at Theatre and Performance Studies, the University of Sydney, and a residency at Brand X.
BIRTH PLAN
2023, Performance LectureLead Artist: Sophie Penkethman-Young
Sound: Jennifer Loveless
On the 4 of May I will be 37 weeks pregnant, which according to my app will mean that my bags are packed, the nursery is prepared and my babies skull will be soft enough to allow for a trip through the birth canal. What better time than this to present my birth plan to my sector peers and the general public. Like any strategic document, the birth plan has been developed through a process of community consultation, research and assessment.
The Birth Plan is funny, informative, moving and you may just see it be put into action.
Birth Plan was performed as part of Live Dreams: Birth at Carriageworks for Performance Space.
WOOLWORTHS ORCHID
Woolworths Orchid, 2019, Airspace ProjectPhoto Zan Wimberley
Sound by Duncan Brown
Reading by Ondine Manfrin
I google the object and find hundreds of images. All of them are slightly different, but mostly the same.
They are infinitely replicable. Hundreds of people may be seeing the same image as me. The image is an object. We touch this object. The object is made of pixels and code.
I walk through the supermarket. I see the object, it is replicated many times and I realise hundreds of people are in supermarkets looking at the same object as me. This object is made of atoms. The store is constructed like the digital space. It keeps me there and I scroll through aisles, spending money and time. Mass consumption of images and objects are inseparable. My consumption exists equally in digital and physical realms. This dystopia is floral and consumable. I am intoxicated and repulsed by it.
I want more and less of it. Woolworths Orchid is a video installation by artist Sophie Penkethman-Young. The work continues her interest in the mass consumption of digital and natural objects
WATCH HERE
BOLERO: A TAIL OF TECH SUPPORT
Boléro: A Tail of Tech Support, 2021, Verge GalleryPhoto Zan Wimberley
Chatbot script by Gus McGrath
Sound by Alister Hill
“It didn’t work out as I had hoped”
Marcel Ravel commenting on a performance of his work Boléro.
“Boléro: A Tail of Tech Support”, 2021 is an alternate near-reality created from lights, chatbots and skate ramps. Working your way from lowly customer service rep all the way up to management, enjoy the mundanity of giving and receiving scripted support with no end in sight. Positive words help to frame affirmative phrases that can create magic. Non-affirmative words should be avoided during conversations, at all costs...
Sophie Penkethman-Young’s, “Boléro: A Tail of Tech Support” is a journey to nowhere, destined to end in chaos. Like its name-sake, let’s hope it work.
CSS Sublime
CSS_Sublime, 2017Steel, GoPro, Raspberry Pi, ceramic, flower arrangement
Structure construction Paul Cohen
‘Let people copy or photograph your paintings. Destroy the originals.’
Yoko Ono, Spring 1964, published in Grapefruit
CSS_Sublime is a steal structure that encasing a flower arrangement that is live streamed as it slowly dies throughout the exhibition. It can be viewed in the gallery and online allowing for two quite different experiences of the work.
‘Flowers are so inconsistent!’
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Burn Out
Burn Out, 20184:30mins
Sound: Duncan Brown
‘Let people copy or photograph your paintings. Destroy the originals.’
Yoko Ono, Spring 1964, published in Grapefruit
Burn Out, 2018, examines digital (and in turn mental) clutter, hoarding and consumption, and its relationship to memory. How can ideas and experiences translate digitally?
How could humanness be described and how could it be uploaded to the cloud?
And what is the difference between technology and magic?
HTML_Flatpack
HLML Flatpack, 2016Digital video projection, demensions variable
Sound: Duncan Brown
‘ HTML_Flatpack uses images from museum archives, constructed photographs and clips from youtube to examine loss of object and history in a digital age where everything is presented on the same platform no matter what the content. The work also touches on the destruction of cultural histories in continuous war.
'A memory cocktail of Youtube snippets, music videos, history films, and digital animations collide in Sophie Penkethman-Young’s new media piece, HTML Flatpack, as a mimic to society’s obsession with infinite-scrolling and channel surfing.'
Mariam Arcilla curator of #PRIZENOPRIZE at The Walls