Interview with Yuri D, Winter 2003

Your photographic style seems to be heavily influenced by other artistic influences, some of which are located outside the realm of photography: do you feel that your approach towards the subject matter of your work is one that is typical of a photographer, or would you argue that you often adopt a more complex and complete look, one that is somehow cinematic, for example?

I wouldn’t say I am consciously influenced by other artists, and in particular photographers. However, there probably are images which I unconsciously “store” somewhere and that maybe, even after several years of “sedimentation”, come back to life in the moment in which I am shooting a particular picture. It is a hard to explain process of association which makes one image come back to life in another, one of those that I create. I become partially aware of this process only in the moment in which I am looking at the actual film, while I am totally unaware of it during the shooting process, both when I imagine the image that I want to create, and when I actually shoot it.

Without a doubt cinema represents my main source of inspiration in this respect, I am influenced by the incredible atmospheres, the concepts, the lighting, the camera work of some filmmakers. I am thinking of Tarkovskij, the early Polanski, Bunuel, Bergman, Cronenberg, Ferrara. There is something of these people in my images, although maybe not visible at a fist glance. But it is there. This makes me think of an Italian (semi unknown) filmmaker, Paolo Benvenuti, who arranges each single image in his movies according to the rules of painting of the Middle Ages and of the following periods. I wouldn’t be able to say which paintings he quotes, but it is easy to spot the influence of that style of painting in his cinema.

My way of looking at an image has a romantic component: I am drawn to the image, I am in love with it, I am in love with the model, or with the space, with the idea I have in mind and which will never come out exactly as I imagined it but which comes out enriched by the interaction with the subject and by the action it portrays. I’d say that my way of looking at an image is contained there, in the gap between my imagination and the actual picture: it is like peeping through a keyhole knowing that the person we are looking at is aware of being spied.

I have another question regarding your influences: several artists do not like at all to discuss the other artists which influence their own work. How do you feel about this? Do you feel the need to maintain some integrity of sort or do you like to actually transform and develop your work depending on the things you see, and the work of other people which you happen to discover? If there are some, which are the people towards which you feel in debt as far as your photos are concerned?

I am a huge consumer of images, literally. Speaking about photographers I would like to mention the work of people which I really admire like Minkkinen, Salgado, Koudelka, Diane Arbus, Steve Diet Goedde, Sarah Moon, Serrano, Witkin, Keith Carter, Gibson, Appelt, Gligorov...and many others of course. Sometimes when I watch their photos I think “God I would have liked to shoot that picture myself”; but my admiration for them renders their work sacred, impossible to mimic. With their talent they have earned a sort of sacred status in my eyes, what they do cannot be “touched” anyhow. I could never copy the work of a photographer that I love, it would be a form of disrespect towards the artist, and somehow also towards myself, since it would force me to loose out on the chance of creating a personal view of the world. I actually find it quite sad to look at the work of those photographers who literally annihilate their own work in order to adopt another artist’s style, to the point of copying carefully even the cut of the pictures, the colors, etc. Unfortunately I see many of these. I guess this has often a lot to do with the trends of the moment: if one year it is fashionable to make use of an oblique look at the subject of the picture and flashlight’s burnt colors, then you can be sure that most of the up and coming photographers will eventually come out with a million copycat images, without even ever asking themselves why they are actually doing that. I suppose the essence of photography lies somehow in the very act of asking yourself questions, and positing problems of any kind and trying to solve them through the articulation of a personal style which is recognizable and unique. Of course, we are influenced and touched by what we see, if we like it. Therefore also our style of photographing is influenced by the images which stroke our attention. But this process is totally unconscious, and it is itself filtered through each person’s sensibility and style.

Sometimes I like to quote other artists, especially some which do not work in the field of photography…but I try to do so in a “sober” manner. I like to insert a detail of their work in a picture, making use of an intuition of sort that they have had. The mixing of different genres does not produce a fake art, actually it de-contextualises reality so as to make it become a sort of “meta-reality”, amplifying the impact of it. In this respect I am thinking of artists such as Trevor Brown, Romain Slocombe, Quentin Tarantino, and of the ways they use languages which are “other” to those proper of their field of expression in order to create an extremely personal expressive style. To sum this up, my own goal as a photographer is to finally create a language and a style which is personal, meanwhile managing to overcome those technical limits which my brief career (3 years) as a photographer inevitably carries.

It seems to me that your work has a strong focus on human material which I would define as “subcultural”: this goes both for your early project on the Italian gothic subculture, and somehow also for the one on anorexia. Do you like to think of your work as a sort of investigation, a reportage on a subject, or do you prefer to consider each single picture as a single unit, a “monad”, not necessarily connected to your other works?

I have always been very attracted by subcultures, by the creativity of some minorities and by attempts at rebellion against the norms of aesthetics. This fascination of mine doesn’t impede me from seeing the mechanics which turn to dust the freedom which subcultures initially tend to win for themselves. However, I have directed my photographic interest towards certain subjects also due to my knowledge of people who are part of the above mentioned subcultures. At the same time, I also started to get interested in girls who are dealing with eating disorders (although I don’t really like to define them that way…as the problem isn’t in the eating, it is elsewhere). I think anorexia symbolizes perfectly the human condition of our times, the feeling of death which permeates the society we live in, the society of the image. That’s why I called the project “Terminal Fitness”. I feel that, especially in this last case, my work becomes a sort of photographic reportage, although I have tried to give a glamour feel to this series of portraits. It was my intention to unmask an illusion, imprinting the very film with the essence of death, while those daily vanity rites which are often defined as self-care are taking place. It is like a catwalk taking place on the bridge of the Titanic…

As I already mentioned before, in general, each one of my pictures is at the same time totally independent from the other and also a piece of a larger puzzle. The theme linking the pictures one to the other is Time, and all those (compulsive, in some cases) efforts that people enact in order to try to stop it, freezing it in an eternal present which has to be as intense as possible, by using daydreaming, a mystical tension of sort, body modifications or sexual deviations. Each shot, each print, is nothing more than a post-mortem of an illusion, and photography is the ghost of freedom.

In your opinion, should a photographer try and portray some pre-existing aspect of what he is photographing (meaning that what is actually portrayed is a characteristic, maybe latent, of the object/person portrayed) or do you think the goal of a photographer is actually to pervert the nature of what is being photographed, by pushing this person or object into an unnatural path?

I think the encounter of a photographer and a person makes for the birth of something which is more complex than the simple sum of the two personalities. It is exactly in this “extra” being generated that you can measure the success of the photographic session. I am using the term “session” on purpose, as I think each photo-shoot is somehow related to psychoanalysis, it has a sort of therapeutic effect for both the parties involved, although I really want to make sure nobody here thinks I am referring to any sort of “transfert”, ehhehe.

The picture which results from each photo-shoot is a synthesis between what the subject of the photograph really is, what part of him/herself he/she wants to show and express, what comes out unintentionally and finally what I, as photographer, see and what I want to portray of him/her.

Indeed you are right in saying that I “pervert” the very essence of people through my pictures, although I would say that the path towards becoming perverted is far from being unnatural. That is part of the nature of a person who wants to say something about him/herself by consenting to model for me, as that implies a “getting naked” of sort, abandoning him/herself to a metamorphosis of sort.

Photography is a projection of the photographer's and of the model’s shadows. For me what matters is that this “unveiling” taking place remains subtle, so that the shadows keep the mystery alive.

In terms of styling of the set and of setting up of a “choreography” of sort, how heavily do you tend to intervene before you shoot a picture? Do you prefer to shoot in total spontaneity, or would you rather attempt at reproducing a precise image which you have visualized in your mind?

For me things work along these lines: I have an initial idea, a fantasy of sort which I wish to recreate through images. So I start thinking about the right person to use in the shoot, and about the ideal place where I can shoot the picture, the place where the whole representation will be taking place. Once I have found both, I start drawing some sketches on an old notebook: there I draw the position of the model, I create some preliminary images, up until the day of the photoshoot. Once I reach the location, I try to recreate there the images which I prepared on the notebook, but through the interaction with the model (and with the scenery) I manage to obtain always newer and newer interpretations of it. I would say that I leave a good margin to improvisation, a space for the interaction between me and the model, a degree of freedom within my initial fantasy. Then, of course, it really depends on the person, I try to be elastic enough and understand whether a person wishes to express with his/her own ideas some part of him/herself, or if he/she prefers instead to be guided in a more passive fashion by my directions.

Can you find a common element connecting the people you have been shooting one to the other? Can you find a sort of “ideal type”, or even better an “ideal victim”, which makes somebody suited for your photos?

This one is a good question! From an aesthetic point of view, I noticed that I really don’t have an ideal type, since most of the people I have been shooting (many of which are my friends) are rather different one from the other. A “trait d’union” could be a disposition, a curiosity, towards what is new, a being centered on individuality (often even in an extreme way). Also, I am attracted by those people who are inclined towards the arts, towards a sort of “aesthetic enjoyment”. It is not a question of “measures” or hair color, but of attitude. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by some figures…the ideal victims you were talking about….for example extremely slim girls, maybe slightly androgynous, with features expressing both innocence, purity, and a degree of sickness towards eroticism. What intrigues me the most are the contrasts, ambiguities of any kind: a large breast on a very skinny body, an evil and hostile look on a face capable of offering a beautiful smile, the malice of a nearly imperceptible gesture, a contrast.

Looking at your picture it is impossible not to notice your predilection for black and white photography over color photography. Also, you seem to prefer shooting outdoor rather than in a studio or in any indoor environment. Could you please comment upon this double tendency of yours?

As far as the choice of black and white is concerned, this is due to two main reasons: first of all, I am more confident with B/W than with color. Then, most importantly, I believe that the use of white, gray, black can make the pictures more disturbing or dreamlike, being that our own chromatic view of reality is NOT in black and white. In black and white everything appears to be sculpted by the contrast of shadows and lights, the eye can focus on the bodies and on the expressions of the faces, without distractions of any kind. You have a complete immersion in a sort of pathos. There are no spots of color deflecting the attention from the construction of shapes which we created through a particular disposition of lines and poses. There is, also, a deeper engagement with time and space. Quoting the title of a book by Tarkovskij, it is a matter of “sculpting time”.

I don’t dislike shooting in a studio (actually I am trying to build one in my garage right now) but I tend to think that some environments located outdoors are ideal to create the kind of world which I wish to bring into life and the kind of stories which I am trying to tell.

I like to insert a human element within contexts where there is a feeling of abandonment and despair (woods where old cars have been left abandoned, refuse-disposal sites, beaches in the winter, etc); this is to suggest a kind of bringing back to life of the environment, an erotic relationship, between living and vital bodies and objects which have no longer any use and machines left abandoned, forgotten. I also like the idea of inserting elements capable of provoking discomfort within a standard, normal context, such as a street, a shopping center, a gym. That creates a multiplication of the effect of discomfort, as the people who become incidentally involved in what is going on (the shooting) are unable to understand what is happening around them, why somebody might be arranging and photographing carefully placed objects or people dressed in an odd fashion within their usual, comforting, environment; therefore they can’t help but looking around in disbelief, worried. This sometimes creates problems but it is extremely exciting for me.

Which kind of objects do you like to use as props in your shootings? Do you think that the interaction between objects and the subjects of your shootings is a necessary step, in order to increase the dynamism of each photograph?

I have a huge collection of weird objects, some of which were found, while other were bought; I use these to recreate my scenarios, my ritual of initiation towards the unknown. My garage is full of butcher-hooks, dolls, gas-masks, broken glasses, mouse baits, medical equipment, gynecological tools. Objects suggest a possible use, as they posses a function: if wisely inserted in an ambiguous or mysterious context they contribute to the creation of a discomforting situation. I hate explicit images, while I really like the situations in which various possibilities for the development of some action are left open…the person observing the photograph must be able, in my opinion, to find several keys through which a reading of what is present can be attempted, the viewer’s fantasy must be constantly stimulated, maybe even violently, so that he/she can develop his/her own visions and opinions. It is like in a movie where the spectator is free to select a preferred ending among a variety of them.

But you did get the point, the subject of my photographs, in becoming connected to a specific object, offers dynamism to the image presented, a sort of sense of becoming otherwise hard to express, at least within my criteria for composition. It is extraordinary how objects can come to life assuming a sort of personality. I obviously do my best to employ these objects with parsimony, as I really don’t like to overload the pictures with anything excessive. The space in each photograph should not by covered completely, it is the void which makes the image, charging it with meaning, sense. I have a rather minimalist approach towards photography.

Have you ever considered taking on other (different) expressive media? Why, if so, would you say that photography is the ideal medium for you to allow your creative vein to run free?

When I was younger I used to express my creativity by playing football, drawing, writing. For several reasons I had to drop all these activities halfway. I do not wish to do so with photography, although I have been taking it seriously only for a short while. When I was eight years old, my dad gave me a Polaroid camera as present. I started going around the woods taking pictures of trees, and also of members of my family. I remember that it used to make me feel really happy, fulfilled. After a short while I stopped photographing, as when you are a kid or an adolescent you often end up going against everything that your father does...mine was indeed interested in photography.

I have restarted photographing only after his death. I believe there must be a deep significance behind all this, but it concerns my private sphere. I am not sure whether photography is the ideal medium of expression for me, for sure it is the only one which, in this moment of my life, allows me to bring out what I have inside, therefore I wish to pursue it. The creative process frees energies, emotions and infinite possibilities; it offers another perspective to what you do. Personally, it is a sort of (non) drug which I wouldn’t be able to live without anymore. I think giving birth to something which wasn’t there before, something “resembling you”, must the most exciting and fulfilling experience in the life of a person who isn’t dead yet.

Your most recent works abandon for the first time the human element in favor of a humanoid, human-like, not-quite-human subject. Dolls’ bodies replace human bodies at once. Why? Also, why do you think that so many (both contemporary and past) artists (Trevor Brown, Mario Ambrosius, etc.) have chosen dolls as ideal subjects for their works? How do you relate to the above mentioned artists and to those other figures (especially Bellmer) who have turned the body of the doll into the main focus of their artistic production?

I find it quite hard to discuss the motivations of other people such as Brown, Ambrosius, or even of somebody like Bellmer. It is hard enough to try and understand what I am doing myself. Nevertheless, I feel extremely thrilled when I look at their works. I think that Mario Ambrosius is a perfect embodiment of modernity, there always is in his work that slight gap between the present and an exciting vision of things to come…I think precisely in that gap you can find all that is contemporary.

Bellmer’s work about dolls instead is extremely disturbing, they reflect perfectly his own anguish and his own époque. Trevor Brown is great, I think he manages to merge pop culture, fetishism, the BDSM/Bondage subculture, extreme literature (Bataille, Burroughs, Ballard, Mishima) and a medical imagery; and he does so with great irony and an endless imagination. He has indeed seen his share of troubles and has fallen victim of censorship several times precisely due to his attitude towards art, a quest which leaves no room for compromises: in fact his works depict desires and practices which the dominant morality rejects or chooses to keep quiet about..

To censor an artistic expression of any kind is highly offensive, and dangerous, as it means considering the people who might want to enjoy a piece, a painting, a performance as simple containers to be filled by what is appropriate and to be kept safe from any “dangerous material”; this means not acknowledging them as persons, as individuals and subjects who can enter in direct contact with what the artist expresses through his/her work and who can re-elaborate this depending on the kind of feelings which they derive from the artwork.

The doll is a perfect example of this view of people, of the spectators, as puppets created one alike to the other, deprived of their own flesh, of their own sensibility, puppets which must be driven on a path, who must be moved here or there, who must be consumed and who maybe are then sent to war or asked for a vote every two or three years.

Our so called “civil society” is nothing but a huge mass of opposed micro-realities, many little “doll houses”, which become more and more hostile one towards the other due to the cruel competition for wealth which pushes people into entering a competition, fighting one against the other. Separation, and the increasing loss of structures, create social control.

As far as I am concerned, I started working on this series of pictures which focus on dolls and puppets trying not to be too conceptual about the aims of my work. As usual, I let what hides in my unconscious come out in the moment of the shoot. These are extremely rapid thoughts, which aren’t even verbalized and are translated simultaneously into an action and an image. I just try to create the right conditions for these to come out, that’s all. Once I have the developed pictures in front of me, I can have some fun in analyzing them, trying to find a “meaning” in what I have created. But this comes at a later stage, and it isn’t even a very interesting part of the creative process, neither is particularly useful to my work; it just makes sense to do so for myself, to understand who I am. Recently I had a show of these photos, I noticed that people seem to ask more questions about them in comparison with the ones with a “human subject”. The eternal immobility of the photograph is reinforced by the presumed stillness of the doll. The facial expressions of the doll, the frozen poses in which they are portrayed…they seem to contribute in creating in the viewers an expectation. They expect a movement, an explanation, a gesture bringing some kind of resolution into play, a termination of the anguish and the anxiety provoked by looking at death straight in the eyes.

I started taking pictures of dolls because, ironically, they are the “human” at its maximum degree, they have their own strength, the life of a metaphor. In a world where we are treated as children, and where children are sexually abused, killed at birth, one of the few available options allowing us to re-affirm the human need for self-expression is to portray plastic bodies and plastic faces. The baby-like dolls which I use bear the signs of the violence they have been exposed to directly visible on their bodies, where they also bear the scars of those limitations which have impeded a real growth on their behalf. Somehow, the condition of the doll could be equated to that of the aborted fetus, it is life which hasn’t ever had a chance to develop. What I am interested in is finding a suitable way of expressing what makes of us “abused children” too, namely the heavy and long-lasting brainwashing which we are exposed to during the course of our life. I want to do this in a manner which makes it hard for the censors to attack my work, and that’s why dolls are perfectly suited for my purposes.

Here I am not talking exclusively about sexual abuses or physical violence. One’s family’s expectations, the educational system as a whole, our brainwashing through advertisement…all these have a role in deviating the healthy energies of a child so deeply that in growing up he will never realize that his whole life is fake, it is only an imitation of a life.

Basically, I am taking pictures of plastic dolls in order to tell the story of the plastic, artificial life lived by most human beings. This is cathartic for me, it is like a “self consciousness training” where each shot can remove one of the barriers impeding my sight. It is a little awakening. I hope those who look at my pictures perceive some part of this.

Would you like to talk about the photographic experiments which you created employing a scanner as if it was a camera? Do you think photography can or must expand its ray of action by making use of new or different forms of technology, or do you consider yourself a “purist”, still attached to traditional photographic techniques? Finally, what do you think of digital photography?

One night a while ago I couldn’t sleep, and decided to try and document this state of mind of mine, my being nervous, frustrated, by putting my head inside an open scanner. Inside a room with no light I tried to imagine how I could recreate certain atmospheres and visual effects, shadows, etc, by employing objects such as knives, or bandages in the process. I was interested in spending some time awake, and seeing how the immediate sight of the result of my work was influencing my mood, my mental state, my actions and the way I was continuing to shoot (as you do when shooting with a Polaroid camera, or when working with digital cameras). I can’t define this process as “photography”, but I still find it an interesting strategy to reflect on the meaning and value of images, and a charming way of researching the topic. Basically this was an exploration of the fields of photographic expression, a deliberate torturing of my face and my psyche, a very primal, naive approach toward the image.

I don’t really think of myself as a purist, mainly because I don’t think anything is pure really, at least in the most common understanding of the term. If purity exists, it is located in the contamination taking place on any possible level. I declare myself in favor of any kind of experimentation. What matters is the result, the path one takes to get there, not the mean employed. As for today though, the results are what indeed leave me unhappy: the use of digital, for example, doesn’t seem convincing to me. It is often used to retouch “traditional” photos, as for those horrible calendars showing naked starlets on tropical islands. In cases like the above ones, digital imaging isn’t anything more than an instrument guilty of making beauty become banal, as it tends to reinforce a standard view of what beauty is, through a virtual lifting and a series of liposuctions.

However, I do approve the use of digital technology to create a different language, directly available on the web, detached from photography. I tend to like “dirty” images, employing transparencies and layering, starting from photographs already of good quality. What I cannot stand is an approach such as the following one: “OK, I am going to shoot a picture now, it doesn’t really matter how it will come out eventually, as I will be fixing it through PhotoShop”. Everybody, I repeat it once again, should seek an own language.

Personally I think that all the “special effects” are diverting us too far outside, far from the heart, far from the real essence of things. A strong image for me should always be minimalist, dirty and neat at the same time, enveloped in a few essential lines.

To create a significant image is a great chance to free our own imaginary of the mass of garbage-images offered to us on a daily bases by the mass-media, by a certain type of cinema, by advertisement, and by the Web. Photography is a matter of subtracting, a kind of sculpture which we dig out of the shadow, a painting that we paint with the available light. So, I have chosen to try and develop a style which could somehow be defined as “classic”, detached from certain trends, which will hopefully also allow me to express violent, disturbing visions and contents in my work, by creating a displacement, an unconscious conflict. As if a TV presenter would start reading in the middle of the news extracts from her own erotic diary, or if the image of a lager would pop out right in the middle of a children’s movie. There are two things that fascinate me: to express the beauty which can be found anywhere, and a certain kind of conceptual terrorism. While I learn more and more techniques which allow me to make a more careful use of my camera, I try to walk on the above two paths. To overcome my limits – which are still very big – is the necessary effort required by this attempt at self-expression, but I think it is totally worth it.

Injuries, car crashes, hospitals, wounds, collars, medical equipment…all these elements recover a rather central importance in the characterization of your style. What are the elements typical of the above objects which manage to fascinate you so profoundly? Do you think that a fetishisation of the world of medicine and of the concept of wound is actively present in your artistic production?

Right now, this medical imaginary is only barely present in my work, existing only on a marginal and subliminal level. I am very afraid of becoming part of a genre which is considered “cool” and I am equally scared of giving the spectators exactly what they expect of me. I prefer not to offer standard answers to desires, rather I like to contribute in positing questions and instilling doubts.

Once this has been clarified, it is obvious that illness, death and wounds are sources of a great fascination for me. But repeating certain themes in their “usual” form (and in the typical settings they are traditionally related to) can become a risky business, as it often makes for a repetition of a cliché. Slocombe for example…although he has had some splendid intuitions and ideas in the past, he seems to have started repeating the same compositions of his pictures and the same kind of images over and over again. I like to use very “neutral” contexts as background; so instead of employing a location or a background which connects too directly to a medical imagery (such as a hospital) I prefer to insert small disturbing elements, such as a bruise, a medical tool, a forceps, a crashed car, etc in the picture. I believe this makes for a more morbid and confusing photograph. If everything is said and made explicit, there can be no “getting lost in the image”. Therefore, better not to say, but to hint only.

There are several levels of awareness behind each visible scar or wound: from plastic surgery (mass brainwashing, and imposition of an aesthetic standard) to the car crash (a random intervention of fate) to a conscious process of self-determination (as for body modifications) and in this last field I believe artists such as Antunez Roca, Franko B and Orlan (absolute genius) have really redefined the role of art in our époque.

In some of my latest (yet to be shown) photographs, I started exploring the connections between metal and flesh (piercing) between interior void and environmental/technological desolation (self-inflicted wounds, abandoned corpses, non-places) between pleasure and pain (flesh, blood, bodily fluids, surgical instruments, meat, hooks). All my effort goes towards avoiding the banal, what has already been seen, the explicit. I am trying to achieve this by means of lighting, by exploiting to the maximum the relationship between different objects, unusual connections and bodily lines.

It is necessary to push photography outside of its own natural limits, instilling life in the stillness of each photograph, making sure that the mind of the person that watches them becomes the stage for a metamorphosis and a performance of sort. It is necessary to create a continuum between the image created and the imagination of the spectator, his nervous system. The film, the print, must become flesh.

…as if that was easy!

Interview by A. Hofer (info@channel83.com).

No parts of this interview can be reproduced without the author’s written permission.

You can contact Yuri D at:
durruti@interfree.it