On Dreams and Screens

For the last year, relationships have been rendered increasingly remote, occurring over video calls on the other side of a screen. "On Dreams and Screens” investigates how intimate and real you can get through a web camera, and what emotional patterns are likely to be formed after hours spent in the online fantasy machine. Online webcam models turn out to be experts in the field of screen-based human bonding — their livelihood depends on it. I focused on a group of seven Ukrainian girls in their twenties who have vast camming experience. I photographed them and talked to them in moments of self-contemplation — in the places of their childhoods, favorite nature spots, and at home. What have they learned? Who are they? What do they have to teach us? Ultimately, I seek to understand the paradoxical relationship of intimacy and distance, connection and disconnection, in a world newly transformed. How do these relationships affect a person’s self-image? How does the virtual gaze seep into our day-to-day existence? Eastern Europe is one of the biggest hubs of webcam models, and the additional important goals were to demystify sex work in my native country, while providing a more nuanced portrait of my roots. To navigate consent and privacy with careful attention, I was often looking for visual strategies to avoid straight portraiture while sustaining an intimate connection with the viewer. All to celebrate protagonists of the project beyond any fantasies or clichés.