I’ll be right back /2020/
Among the users of webcams platform, some individuals monetize their bodies, as well as those who need to show themselves. Looking through the profiles, you see how bodies and houses are exposed at the same time. Two categories of private are connected in one place. In particular, homosexual men easily show their identity to declare who they are at home.
New technologies help to feel safe, not afraid of judgment and physical violence. In your home or room, there is a chance to relax and feel like yourself at least in the evening after work or on weekends. For a short time, you have a personal freedom area, which is limited by the walls of your home and access to the Internet, in a place where society does not accept people like you and wishes that there were no people like you. The sign "I'll be right back" is a story of constant risk in the real world and temporary rescue in the virtual world. When you don't have the opportunity to live in a big city or move to a safer area, when you do not have time to wait for better times, you build your life here and now, escaping in the digital world from the hate of society. You exchange the time for the opportunity to be in a safe place where sexuality becomes an entry ticket.
Sexual desire is forced to be digitized. In one case the hiding of homosexuality becomes a form of protection from possible abuse in society, and in another case, the demonstration of one's identity on the web encounters obstacles to come into real world. The established distance separates both the unwanted and desired physical contact, protects both from pain and from pleasure. Tactfulness is reduced to interaction with communication devices on the Internet, when touches on the screen and keys express acceptance and rejection with the same gesture.
Maksim Finogeev (b.1987) is a photographer and a visual artist from Ukraine, lives and works in Odesa. He graduated from the Odesa National Maritime University (2008) and the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts (2014).
His work has been featured at Festival Die Digitale (Dusseldorf), TIFF Festival (Wroclaw), festival PRESENCE (St. Petersburg), Circulation(s) (Paris), Gogolfest (Kyiv, Ukraine), festival Non Stop Media VIII (Kharkiv, Ukraine), Backlit Triennial (Tampere, Finland), Kaunas Photo Festival (Lithuania), Busan International Photo Festival (South Korea).
He had solo exhibitions at the Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of the Sea, Odesa (2019), Odesa Museum of Western and Oriental Art (2017), Center of Contemporary Art «Tea Factory» Odesa (2016).
He received the commission given by the Platform for Cultural Initiatives IZOLYATSIA with BigMedia (Ukraine), creative cluster “Prostranstvo” (Ukraine), Places _ Virtual Reality Festival (Gelsenkirchen, Germany), LGBTIQA organization “Labrys” (Kyrgyzstan).
His work was awarded by Young Artists Competition Natan Altman, Vinnytsia, UA (2019), Prix Picto de la Mode, Paris (finalist-2018), "Photographer of the year 2016 FOTO.UA", Kyiv (2016), Bazaar fashion forward, Harper's Bazaar Ukraine, Kyiv (2012).
He is a project manager at the international festival Odesa photo days.
https://cargocollective.com/finomaks