interview fatal 3

Jurij is entering a new phase: he's experimenting with photography and taking pictures on his phone. I'm experimenting with interviews: I only take them from Jurij, today on WhatsApp.

It's almost 11 PM and I'm already in bed. I want to sleep, but I realize that yawning during the conversation would be impolite, and for the first time I decide to listen more than talk.

J.T.: "I haven't read the news on Google that comes up when you search for my name and surname in a while. I came across a funny collection with loud headlines: 'Svetlana Bondarchuk in a SCANDALOUS SHOOT' and 'Vera Brezhneva WITHOUT ANY UNDERWEAR AT ALL'.

And he laughs."


On the past.

J.T: - I didn't see my second exhibition. I was preparing all day, there were a lot of inconsistencies, related to things that are impossible to predict: for example, the videos that needed to be broadcast on the plasma had to be made on computers with the Windows system.

L.M: - Who would have thought.

J.T: - I had a MacBook, and resolving this issue took almost half a day. As a result, I didn't have enough time for an important installation with posters on the street, and from the outside, it might have gone unnoticed, but I felt that it was incomplete.

In anticipation of the third exhibition, I will try to rehearse all the technical questions several times and try to compensate for what was missed. I can't call it a mistake or a success - everything happened the way it had to, the way it could have happened. At that stage, I was ready as much as I could be. I couldn't have done any better, I could only have done worse. (Laughs again).

The way everything happened allows me to do the exhibition differently now. And this time I want to be a visitor, not someone who will keep an eye on everything


About casual relationships with photos taken on a phone; and why use a phone when it was invented to make calls.

J.T: - Nowadays, I take 300-400 shots on my phone, filter out the unsuccessful ones, and send almost a third of the remaining ones to the models. Not all of them are super great pictures, but with my filters and lenses, all of them become unusual and expressive in their own way. Today, I sent the shooting results to two models on their phones: one with 100, and the other with 200 photos. This way, I free myself from the agonizing choice and give them the opportunity to choose and agonize over what they will share. For me, this is a fresh approach.

L.M: - Do you go for quantity?

J.T: - They are still ecstatic about it, they like it, and they instantly upload the photos to the internet, so it's not about quantity.

L.M: - Don't you think that your function as a photographer is somewhat broader than finding a model, undressing her, and taking her picture? Aren't you supposed to choose what people will look at and be amazed by? And you delegate this function.

J.T: - Yes, and I do it consciously. It's a continuation of my experiment with shooting on a phone. With the current volume of photos, it's not essential to me if the girl chooses photos that I didn't want to highlight. It doesn't bother me.

Moreover, such photos are qualitatively different material, and the attitude towards them is different. I would call it "free."

I don't process the picture, but prepare the result on the spot. There's a charm and complexity to that. I partly give raw material, and if you work on it, make a collage/crop/enlarge it - I won't have any complaints. Unlike with pictures from Canon.

L.M: - I love the way you call photos "pictures," and your pronunciation of that word is beautiful!

J.T: - Pictures taken on a phone are closer to people: they easily recognize themselves, and they look like themselves. But pictures from professional cameras begin to seem foreign, like if an artist documented you with colors on a canvas. A photographic accuracy, but still, it's a drawing. What's shot on a phone camera becomes more familiar and understandable
L.M: Could you call that growth?

J.T: In a way, yes.

L.M: But it doesn't look like it from the outside.

J.T: I understand that it could be perceived negatively. If I come to a shoot, and if the shoot is paid, and I shoot 90% of it on my phone, and give the results from those percentages, then the person may question "how is this possible?"

L.M: Do you know what that sounds like? It sounds like fraud!

J.T: You see, if I shot on just a naked phone camera without using any of my effects, that would be fraud. But in every shoot, I'm in a creative search and make creative discoveries using my techniques.

L.M: You use the free Huji app.

J.T: Yes.

L.M: And what do you say in your defense?

J.T: That's the thing...

L.M: Don't sigh like that.

He clicked his tongue at me.

J.T: - I came into the world of phone photography from a professional world, so I see it as an experiment, and any experiment as growth. And it's not like I came, I stepped: one foot here, the other there. For me, it's just a new territory that I'm exploring. The most important thing is that there is a result at the end that at least two people like.

L.M: - Dad and mom.

J.T: - Me and the person I did this shoot with. Of course, I periodically ask myself the question: "How professional is it to shoot on a phone?" but I don't call myself a charlatan. And I find the answer: in fact, it doesn't matter what you shoot on. I still provide the result with images. Who cares if you don't know the technique of throwing a three-pointer in basketball, if you keep hitting the basket time and time again?


J.T: - A photographer cannot afford to stand still at any point in the field of services, just responding to clients' requests and adjusting to them. I receive external requests and respond to them, but when I have the opportunity to create an exhibition and initiate my own shoots for it, I become more proactive and I enjoy this state! Such projects mobilize me and help me progress.

That's how it should be.

On the upcoming exhibition and future dreams.

L.M: - There is a pattern that the third part of a movie often fails to meet anyone's expectations. By what laws do your exhibitions live, and what fate could the third part of your trilogy expect?

J.T: - In my exhibitions, the only thing the trilogy has in common is the title. The exhibition I'm preparing will not be shown as something complete, unlike the third parts of movies - it's a living organism, and I don't know how it will live its six hours. I'm interested, and I'll come to see it. In any outcome, I see a new opportunity.

The aesthetics of the movie "Blade Runner" emerged as a reaction to the Comet platform. The design and architectural solutions of the space brought back memories of this movie with all its cyberpunk styling. At that moment, everything fell into place. Especially since the exhibition takes place in Moscow, and for me, modern Moscow is absolutely cyberpunk: the coexistence of the latest technologies and incredible devastation, progressiveness, and conservatism at the same time.

I gained momentum on the first two exhibitions, and there were unrealized ideas left; it seemed necessary to develop them further, and I couldn't help but make this exhibition. While I was looking for a venue, on the one hand, I had many ideas, and on the other - none.


L.M: Where did the desire to create an exhibition come from?

J.T: I'm turning 35. I don't often celebrate my birthdays.

L.M: Once a year.

J.T: Yes, exactly. The explanation may sound strange: sometimes when people don't fully accept themselves, they try to avoid their birthday as much as possible. In my opinion, my exhibition had to happen on the night of my birthday.

L.M: You position the exhibition as "the future," but in fact, you don't predict anything, you don't create any concrete images. So what is the "future" then?

J.T: Yes, there's no futurism in the exhibition. I don't fantasize about how people will move, dress. I don't predict anything. I just create photogenic scenes that can be interpreted and captured for memory. Captured on a phone, otherwise it doesn't count.

People often live in the illusion of creativity. When you stuff yourself with beautiful pictures, you suddenly start to feel that you have a relationship with them, even if you just evaluate them with a like or a comment. You may get the feeling that you're actively living in a creative world, but the percentage of what you create, compared to what you consume, becomes a number that looks like an error.

In the future, I would like any event that you attend to be a platform for experimentation and creativity, where everyone actively but not forcefully gets involved in what's happening. So that you don't postpone your actions for "later," if you have an impulse to do it now. If you feel inspired, do it immediately.

It's like going to the cinema, when you leave the hall inspired, when you feel a surge of energy, and the screening is in the evening, and you have an hour or two left before you have to go to bed. In the morning, you wake up and realize that the magic is gone, everything has dissipated.

If this energy is born, it's interesting to try to apply it right away and see what the result will be. I want to create such an opportunity because I want to have such an opportunity myself.

L.M: Would you like to say anything else?

J.T: I doubt I would wish everyone to "try everything" because I myself would refrain from doing so.

Just if the situation prompts you to do something, go for it. Despite my seriousness about the exhibition, I want it to remain a game, so that everyone can play their own games without rules.



Should I tell him that at 1:30 am, I meant goodnight wishes? We say goodbye, and I hang up the phone.

I have a feeling he will appear in my dreams tonight.