Lucy Raven, Untitled, 2021, Framed shadowgram; silver gelatin direct print, 32.5 x 24.5 cm, 12 3/4 x 9 5/8 in, Framed: 38.5 x 30.5 x 3 cm, Framed: 15 1/8 x 12 x 1 1/8 in
Shadowgrams series, 2021–22
Lucy Raven
This selection of works from a series of more than 60 unique silver gelatin shadowgrams, entitled Socorro! (2021–22) by American artist Lucy Raven, record the elemental pressures of air and raw materials from a number of explosive events by exposing photosensitive paper for micro-seconds after detonation. Her empirical experiments, using a stroboscopic flash within a custom-built, room-sized black box at a Ballistics Sciences Lab, resulted in these subtly inflected abstractions, rendered as silhouettes with occasional impact marks created by flying debris. Raven’s images are witness to the unseen forces of blast waves as they radiate away from the source towards the surface of each unique shadowgram, transforming material forces into abstract marks and physical remnants in the wake of these extreme events.
Raven constructed her purpose-built camera obscura on an explosives range in New Mexico, typically employed as a test site by the US Departments of Defense and Energy, as well as by private munitions companies. The town where the explosives range is located was given its name, Socorro (meaning ‘succour’ or ‘relief’), by ailing Spanish settlers when Piro Native Americans welcomed them with water. Raven became interested in this location, which is also close to the very first sites of nuclear weapon testing, while filming for the second of a cinematic trilogy of latter-day Westerns, each of which investigates properties of pressure, force, and material transformation in relation to the Western United States, past and present. Writing on these films, Lucy R Lippard noted that “Raven is a master of slow time and mesmerizing close-ups contrasted with flashes of surrounding action, following the industrial alchemy by which fluid materials turn to solids and vice versa.”
Lucy Raven, Untitled, 2021, Framed shadowgram; silver gelatin direct print, 48.9 x 57.8 cm, 19 1/4 x 22 3/4 in, Framed: 54.6 x 64.1 x 5.1 cm, Framed: 21 1/2 x 25 1/4 x 2 in
Shadowgrams series, 2021–22
Lucy Raven
This selection of works from a series of more than 60 unique silver gelatin shadowgrams, entitled Socorro! (2021–22) by American artist Lucy Raven, record the elemental pressures of air and raw materials from a number of explosive events by exposing photosensitive paper for micro-seconds after detonation. Her empirical experiments, using a stroboscopic flash within a custom-built, room-sized black box at a Ballistics Sciences Lab, resulted in these subtly inflected abstractions, rendered as silhouettes with occasional impact marks created by flying debris. Raven’s images are witness to the unseen forces of blast waves as they radiate away from the source towards the surface of each unique shadowgram, transforming material forces into abstract marks and physical remnants in the wake of these extreme events.
Raven constructed her purpose-built camera obscura on an explosives range in New Mexico, typically employed as a test site by the US Departments of Defense and Energy, as well as by private munitions companies. The town where the explosives range is located was given its name, Socorro (meaning ‘succour’ or ‘relief’), by ailing Spanish settlers when Piro Native Americans welcomed them with water. Raven became interested in this location, which is also close to the very first sites of nuclear weapon testing, while filming for the second of a cinematic trilogy of latter-day Westerns, each of which investigates properties of pressure, force, and material transformation in relation to the Western United States, past and present. Writing on these films, Lucy R Lippard noted that “Raven is a master of slow time and mesmerizing close-ups contrasted with flashes of surrounding action, following the industrial alchemy by which fluid materials turn to solids and vice versa.”
Lucy Raven, Untitled, 2021, Framed shadowgram; silver gelatin direct print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 20 x 16 in, Framed: 53.3 x 43.2 x 3.8 cm, Framed: 21 x 17 x 1 1/2 in
Shadowgrams series, 2021–22
Lucy Raven
This selection of works from a series of more than 60 unique silver gelatin shadowgrams, entitled Socorro! (2021–22) by American artist Lucy Raven, record the elemental pressures of air and raw materials from a number of explosive events by exposing photosensitive paper for micro-seconds after detonation. Her empirical experiments, using a stroboscopic flash within a custom-built, room-sized black box at a Ballistics Sciences Lab, resulted in these subtly inflected abstractions, rendered as silhouettes with occasional impact marks created by flying debris. Raven’s images are witness to the unseen forces of blast waves as they radiate away from the source towards the surface of each unique shadowgram, transforming material forces into abstract marks and physical remnants in the wake of these extreme events.
Raven constructed her purpose-built camera obscura on an explosives range in New Mexico, typically employed as a test site by the US Departments of Defense and Energy, as well as by private munitions companies. The town where the explosives range is located was given its name, Socorro (meaning ‘succour’ or ‘relief’), by ailing Spanish settlers when Piro Native Americans welcomed them with water. Raven became interested in this location, which is also close to the very first sites of nuclear weapon testing, while filming for the second of a cinematic trilogy of latter-day Westerns, each of which investigates properties of pressure, force, and material transformation in relation to the Western United States, past and present. Writing on these films, Lucy R Lippard noted that “Raven is a master of slow time and mesmerizing close-ups contrasted with flashes of surrounding action, following the industrial alchemy by which fluid materials turn to solids and vice versa.”