In 2011 I took a portrait series of random strangers encountered in online chats. They were captured from a computer monitor, manipulated, and exhibited in the real world the same year. In some way, this was a disregard to the traditional quest for the quality of contemporary digital photography. Here, the beauty of classical photography, like black tones, blur, etc., had a vital part to play.

The place of film grain here is taken by screen pixels, which became an increasingly important part of the construction of our daily lives. The analogical authenticity of persons photographed is almost entirely erased by these pixels. However, there is still some space for interpretations of moods to errors and imperfections of the digital flow left.

In 2011, "Webcam portraits" was a series that questioned if Internet-based digital technologies are putting an end to traditional photography or if they are opening new vistas for image art. In 2021, with the lived experience, the lockdowns, the blockchain, I revisited these questions and released some of the webcam portraits from Chatroulette back to their initial digital environment as limited edition clean Tezos NFTs on hic et nunc marketplace.

First exhibition: Kaunas Photo Festival 2011. Published in The New York Review of Books, Der Greif, FK Magazine, among others.