Sal Schaefer

Teoman Irmak

‘Flattened face’ – 2007

“I guess computers don’t do irony very well.”

Why do you appear to reject photography?
I don’t, I only reject ‘variations on the old themes type photography. It is still mainly exploring aspects of journalism. That’s ideal if you are a journalist. Photography is the perfect tool for that. But we need to move forward. It is essential to draw a line under conventional photography, and move on.

A lot of photography is ‘holiday snaps’. The pros get to go to more interesting places on an expense account.

But photographs are perfect for recording textural information. It is perhaps the best tool for this.
These portraits are based on such photographs. The multiple 360 views of the faces of the footballers were assembled and redrawn by hand on a computer. The initial 3D information was thus flattened out.

I find it interesting that these flattened two dimensional images were later used to wrap round 3D models of the faces to recreate a lifelike representation.
I guess computers don’t do irony very well.

Teoman Irmak

‘Flattened face #2’ – 2007