Parallel || Planets: Krist Mort's Illusive Enticement

A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown

Hello, Kristina! It’s great to have you here on Parallel Planets. Tell us about yourself as a photographer & a filmmaker, before you became both, and if you weren’t either of the two.

I started taking pictures at a point in my life where I had no future perspective whatsoever. I had just stopped working as a model and after all the years of helping others bringing their ideas to life, I simply wanted to realize my own. I never intended or planned to be a photographer. But I liked where my work was taking me and how I grew with it. At this point, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else anymore.

Maybe it’s just because I’m biased with black & white, but I really adore your consistency with the monochromatic medium. Is it something you’ve been doing since you learned how to use the camera? Or is it something that you’ve developed through your photographic experiments?

All of my work is very much about contradictions, contrasts and how they work together and nourish each other. Using black and white feels most natural to me to showcase these concepts.

I love how you associated your pictures with death & rebirth and creation & destruction. To me, these opposing concepts are so much related to the very core of Parallel Planets: the counterparts and coexistence of worlds in between. How do you go about your creative process—from the conception of ideas to the execution of your thoughts onto photographs?

I loathe plans and structures. And I never make any when it comes to shooting either. I prefer working with fragments of ideas instead of well thought out concepts. Working “with the moment” to sharpen and specify the story an image tells, and letting my instinct and mood (re)define the final outcome. My surroundings and how they interact with me in the very moment I take a picture, are always my biggest influence.

Your book, “My,” is incredible. Tell us more about it. Technical specifications aside, how does it mirror you, not only as a photographer, but also as an artist that advocates darkness and the occult as a medium of expression?

Challenges and experiments are, what keeps me motivated. And that is simply what the “My” books were all about. It was a fun, but also rather personal project. However, I really wouldn’t link this (or any other of my current work) to “darkness and the occult”. A theme that I kind of seem stuck and a lot of people, who were introduced to me through my earlier work, still seem to expect from me somehow.

Which photographers (living or dead) do you admire the most and how do their works influence yours? What other things, places, or events inspire your style?

At the moment I am obsessed with butoh dancer Atsushi Takenouchi. The artist with the biggest influence on me but mostly my way of working, is Andy Goldsworthy. The way he interacts with and incorporates his surroundings and how well he uses minimalistic techniques to create the most absorbing pieces will forever be inspiring to me.

How does black & white analogue photography relate to your personality and your personal stories? Why makes film more “special” than digital?

The intimacy. The experiments. The unpredictability.

What’s the wickedest experiment you’ve done with your pictures? How did it go?

I guess each new project is an experiment itself as I never know how it will turn out.

To you, what makes a photograph beautiful and worth keeping?

I don’t know. I like pictures that leave you wondering, asking questions and not being able to tell what exactly it is, that makes you keep looking at them. “Obvious beauty” isn’t what interests me.

Aside from creating stills and moving pictures, what other creative pursuits are you interested in?

I am actually rather absorbed by what I do. And I quite like that.

If you were to pick 3 for each, what are your all-time favourite books, films (cinema), and songs?

I have a hard time really “getting into” a book. Usually, I prefer short stories or non-fictional books with a psychological/ philosophical aspect. “Maramba” by Paula Köhlmeier is one of my favorites though. As for music, I will always adore Moondogs “Surf Session”, “At the heart of it all” by Coil and “Angels Standing Guard Round the Side of Your Bed” by A Silver Mt. Zion. Three of many favorite films are Persona by Ingmar Bergman, La jetée by Chris Marker and Electroma by Daft Punk (which is most likely one of the most underrated pieces ever created).

In this planet that we're thriving in—
What is your power animal?

I have this fascination with rabbits…

Who is your alternate ego?

I already am mine, I guess.

In an alternate universe where photography does not exist—
What would your name be?

In my alternate universe people wouldn’t talk, but converse in some other way. There would be no need for names.

What would you be doing instead?

Observing.