Pekka Niittyvirta

Interviews:

by Nicholas Grider via i heart photograph

I’m interested in the idea of visual “noise” or disruption in your images and was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the role that this noise plays when making an image.

I think that it is important to shed first some light over the technique or method, which is used when creating these images. Images are modified by alteration of digital image file’s source code: inserting or removing data. For example Paris Hilton (Dog Chromosome X, Poodle) has dog’s genetic data and Broken Idyll (Bridge) has phrases from the Burmese propaganda newspaper New Light Of Myanmar inserted to the image file. Image is taken in the Burmese Himalayas. With the picture Removing White, I literally removed all parts of code re-presenting white. Image originally depicted a tank from the World War II.

In a way I destroy the image, but on the other hand, I attempt to create something aesthetically surprising and interesting.

The noise also has the function of distorting or obscuring parts of the original image. For you, how do you choose the images and what choices to you make in altering an image?

I try to choose images which, after manipulation results particular connotation, political or otherwise. Whether I use a image from the web or choose to photograph it by my self, the aesthetics naturally affect also a lot during the process.

The results after insertion of scientific or political data might appear as random, mistakes or destructive to the original re-presentation. But are in fact results of analyzing the image file and careful consideration where to insert the data. There is also some trial and error involved, especially when I first started making these images. Nowadays I have gained quite a lot of control over the effects.

The distorted images also push the photos toward abstraction, and I was wondering if you could talk more broadly about the role of abstraction in your work.

It seems to me that abstraction in photograph is fundamentally different comparing to that of painting. Photograph, as an abstraction may actually be impossibility, since it always tied to its origins in the real world.

I don’t consider these images as abstractions, but rather as information re-ordered in a way, which isn’t quite understandable through conventional methods of reading an image. For me the abstract-looking areas symbolize the visual noise and the identity vacuum of the contemporary society. Images also act as metaphors to the religion like faith in science and technology; Belief of creating something beautiful and good, even if it might not always be the case.

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Greetings From Helsinki

By Santtu Parkkonen / Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.5.2006

Photographer Pekka Niittyvirta got thoroughly fed up with a situation that seemed to repeat itself every time he travelled: he could never find any postcards that actually said anything real about the destination. It was just Eiffel Towers, churches, and other tourist sightseeing evergreens. When Niittyvirta got home to Helsinki, he saw to his dismay that the situation was no different here. “Helsinki presents itself in postcards as the Sibelius Monument, the Lutheran Cathedral, and other stock clichés, and that is just about it.”

…Niittyvirta’s postcards show “Helsinki by Sleet”, they show dirty windows, they present streets in a permanent state of being dug up for repair, and they show over-indulged men and other party animals crashed out on park benches, on the grass, or in doorways. “It is quite disturbing that people passing out after getting drunk are regarded as quite normal in Helsinki, and nobody pays any attention any longer to the slumped bundles”, ponders Niittyvirta.

The less than attractive situations portrayed are for real; they have not been set up for the camera. Niittyvirta has merely captured them on his compact digital while out walking on his normal routes, for instance in the Kallio and Hakaniemi districts, and in the downtown area of the capital.

“I just shoot whatever comes in front of the lens. If I had gone out with the specific plan of hunting down suitable images, then there would have been more from the suburbs.” The pictures on the cards are accompanied by the tried-and-tested postcard texts, such as Greetings from Helsinki, Spirit of Helsinki, Helsinki by Night, and Helsinki Many Faces. “There are even some captions that I have swiped from the brochure produced to advertise the new EU Chemicals Agency to be located in Helsinki”, explains Niittyvirta.

…He is unfazed by worries about Helsinki’s image. “I believe that the cards will actually even make a positive impression, particularly among young people. There is no way this can be a destructive exercise.”

Complete article here (English) and here (Finnish)

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