Teknari started shooting in digital around 2008 and ended making his own silver gelatins film and creating art with hand-written life journals, sewed up the with thread. We think he is a contemporary photography artizen and here’s our conversation with him about erotic, art and new media.
By Fluffer Magazine in Fluffer Magazine
116 pages, published 5/17/2015
Inside issue 004 ~ english text inside, and photos!
FEAT. PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alva Bernadine, Giacomo Rebecchi, Turi Avola, Riccardo Bandiera, Teknari, Elmar Lens, Anthony De Luca, Sarah Easton, Pelin Santilli, Alessandro Didoni, Sam Bea, Walter Fantauzzi, Medusa Wild Heart, Luca De Nardo.
FEAT. MODELS:…
Teknari means artist in Faroese, the language of Faroe, an autonomous country of Denmark, maybe has something to do with your origins?
Holy shit, I had no idea it meant that! Sometime after the Berlin wall came down, I was reading an article about how people were having a tough time in the former USSR, except for young technically savy people. They had Russian slang for these people and called them “teknari”. At the time, I just liked the word and the meaning, so I purchased Teknari.com and just held onto it. Later when I started photographing I decided to use it as a nom de guerre. Pretty amazing coincidence that the word means artist in Faroese. Maybe my memory isn’t so good.
A part from the name origins, what is the Teknari project?
It started out by wanting to create the type of artwork that I would like to find. Now it has changed for me, and I realized that I am the final work, and that these physical and digital artifacts that I create are just a way to change myself. I like the kind of person I become by doing the work that I should do.
Tired and disappointed by digital photography, one day in 2011 you stopped with that, decided to shoot on film and produce your own silver gelatines, aiming to obtain a more physical work. The result is an unpredictable and misterious mix of images melt with the material, recreating a dark and intense atmosphere, very personal. Where does this need for physicity come from?
One way I think about breaking up my work is to think about what goes online, what is going to go into a book, and what will go into a gallery. I want to create work that best fits each media. I think when you create work that spans all media, it lands in this middle ground where I think you are doomed to mediocracy.
Think of the aesthetics of a diary. Imagine finding someone’s diary where they hand wrote what went on in their lives. Imagine if they took photos and affixed them to the pages. Imagine there are drawings. That makes it even more special.
I understand. So for online?
So for online, GIFs are fantastic.They can’t really be done in a book the same way, they work best in the online environment, inhabiting this previously unexplored area between still image and video. There are artists working in this new media that are breaking ground so it is exciting. There is also recognition in the fine art world for this new form of work. Like a huge show at Art Basel Miami a couple years ago called Moving the Still that I visited that was in this enormous warehouse in the Wynwood district of Miami. A really impressive show for this new medium.
For physical books, what works best there?
For me, photographs printed in a book by a printer is not the best and most compelling use of the book form anymore. I understand that there are people who just inherently have a preference for books, but I think that if you were fair and looked at this year’s top photo books in a book vs on a tablet, you are not missing out by viewing them on a tablet, and with the high resolution of displays now, I would argue that many of the photos look better on a display particularly if the lighting isn’t so great in your room. What makes a physical book compelling to me is something that is hand made by the artist. My earliest books were polaroid photographs that I sewed into the pages. The resolution of a polaroid is beyond what you are going to get from a book printer. Viewing them is different than viewing a printed page. Think of the aesthetics of a diary. Imagine finding someone’s diary where they hand wrote what went on in their lives. Imagine if they took photos and affixed them to the pages. Imagine there are drawings. That makes it even more special. There is a reverence I think most of us would approach that diary with. We all recognize its worth, regardless of the status of the person who wrote it. I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t recognize the sanctity of such an item, and I know that if I did meet such a person that I wouldn’t like them. But I have yet to meet such a person. A diary or journal is the best and most compelling use of the book form that I can think of, and that is what I am going for in creating my books. That hand written journal with pictures and drawings is far far better as a physical book than it is online. In fact, I keep a journal where I do just such a thing, and you can see the entries at: http://teknari.com/journal. The journal is kept on individual pages, and at the end of the year I bind the pages together using needle and bookbinding thread. Lately it has evolved more into an art journal than a personal diary, but who knows, maybe next year the pendulum will swing the other way. So the aesthetics of a diary is what I am going for in my books, although I don’t think I was always conscious of that fact. My first ones, were photo books with polaroid photographs sewn into the pages, and the binding was hand sewn. My most recent book (Saint Petersburg Limited Edition), contained photographic prints that I made by hand, from gelatin, silver nitrate, and a few other chemicals on paper, that were then exposed, developed, and sewn into the pages. These are the types of books I would like to own, but I don’t see people making them.
My most recent book (Saint Petersburg Limited Edition), contained photographic prints that I made by hand, from gelatin, silver nitrate, and a few other chemicals on paper, that were then exposed, developed, and sewn into the pages.
And for galleries?
Well, for a gallery, that is where you pull out the big guns. Gallery shows are about a big experience. Something where people say‚ you had to see it‚ A show that doesn’t come off the same in pictures. Something worth making the trip for.
You realized very big artworks for your last exhibition with this personal tecnique, in NY at ABFA.
I wouldn’t call them simply photographs, as the shooting is only the beginning of a very complex project. Is your work undergoing another transformation after this large scale experience? The photographs in that show were printed on 4 x 6 glass plates, each weighing over 100 lbs, that were then mounted in welded steel frames to support the weight, and they were backlit. Overall each work weighed over 200 lbs, and the entire show weighed more than a ton. I had to invent a way to apply photographic emulsion smoothly to plates this size. I don’t think it has ever been done before. Putting on this show was extremely physical. If you have ever done darkroom work before, you have developed photographic paper by transferring the paper from developer, to stop bath, to fixer, to rinse, and then by drying them. Now imagine doing that if the pieces of paper were 4×6 100lb pieces of glass and you could only touch one side. Tough.This show was new work unlike anything that had ever been done, but it took a lot out of me. I am waiting for the initiative and ideas to build inside of me for my next show, which they are slowly starting to do. I don’t like doing what other people have done before.
What am I supposed to photograph? Trees? Rocks? Some people call them forests and mountains, but for the most part I see them as trees and rocks. The body is the best subject matter and I think artists have known this for a long long time.
You often portrait nudes in your pics. What does Nudity and Body represent in your work?
I don’t think they represent anything more than what they are. In my mind, there really isn’t anything much better to photograph. What am I supposed to photograph? Trees? Rocks? Some people call them forests and mountains, but for the most part I see them as trees and rocks. The body is the best subject matter and I think artists have known this for a long long time. Certainly anybody from Italy should know this 😉 Also as a photographer, it is your job to shoot things that are not so easily attainable to shoot. Nudes are still not so easy.
Dreams of itself and Eraser, two limited books you published, include Shibari shots and erotic and surreal nude images. What is Eroticism for Teknari?
I look at art constantly. One of the great benefits of our time that you can browse art endlessly, and I take full opportunity. From constantly looking at nudes for years, and now shooting nudes for years, they no longer strike a sexual chord in me. I think I burned out those circuits. I simply don’t see nudes sexually or erotic. Even strait up pornography, I will be thinking that lighting doesn’t really work or they should have cropped that differently.. Usually this doesn’t strike me as odd, but occasionally I will be showing work to someone who is not in that world that I am in, and I can see them react to the nudes with excitement, embarrassment, or shock, and I realize that I have traveled a long way down this rabbit hole where most people haven’t. I am a world apart from that boy who was excited beyond belief finding a Playboy under his Dad’s mattress. So none of my work I really see as erotic, but I understand that other people might. I simply do what I like and what I am drawn to. I think it is probably left to the critic or psychiatrists to decide what is going on in my subconscious. My job is to try to make something I could love.
If you are a photographer, all you have to do is pick up a camera, and start shooting. Something. Anything. As you start doing this physical process your inspiration will come. The very hardest part of creating something is picking up the camera, pen or brush and making that first mark.
I read some of your diary blog which narrates your daily creative experiences and approach, an object that you consider a self-portrait and that you exposed in your show as another physical work. Who or what do you feel more inspired from?
Inspiration is kind of a bad word, because I think most people think of it the wrong way. They think you get inspired, and then you work. Inspiration trips up some artists this way as well. They don’t feel inspired, so they don’t work. After all, the word inspiration implies that.What really happens is that you work, and then you get inspired. I wonder if we actually didn’t have the word inspiration‚ things would be better? If you are a photographer, all you have to do is pick up a camera, and start shooting. Something. Anything. As you start doing this physical process your inspiration will come. The very hardest part of creating something is picking up the camera, pen or brush and making that first mark. I now make it my practice that after getting up, eating, and meditating, the first thing I do every day for 4 hours is to create new work. That is my job and the most important thing to do, so I do it first. I set a timer on my phone for 4 hours, and when the timer is done I quit and eat. I don’t answer emails.I don’t fix equipment. I create. I want it to make it automatic and a habit that I make that first mark every morning, because I know that is the hardest part. The rest is relatively easy. To start I may seed my work with inspirational images I saved, but lately I have starting using my own work to seed my work. I have been taking a shot of a model for example, and then riffing off that theme to create some non-body focused images. It will be interesting to see if I continue down this self-referential spiral where I end up, whether it ends up repetitive and boring, or deeply different from the world of work around it. My guess is that a mix will work best. But if you work like this, by just starting and making that first mark, I don’t think you will ever be blocked or stuck, waiting for inspiration to strike. I have far more ideas than I can ever produce. Lack of inspiration is never a problem, lack of time is.
Is there a new project upcoming?
I just started an email list where I share some of my thoughts. It is a surprise result from suspending my Facebook account. I had people who didn’t want me to get off Facebook, so I decided to start an email that was personal and where we didn’t have to deal with any of the Facebook ickyness. Feel free to sign up.
Teknari | website
By Fluffer Magazine in Fluffer Magazine
116 pages, published 5/17/2015
Inside issue 004 ~ english text inside, and photos!
FEAT. PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alva Bernadine, Giacomo Rebecchi, Turi Avola, Riccardo Bandiera, Teknari, Elmar Lens, Anthony De Luca, Sarah Easton, Pelin Santilli, Alessandro Didoni, Sam Bea, Walter Fantauzzi, Medusa Wild Heart, Luca De Nardo.
FEAT. MODELS:…