The Rorschach Test

4TUNE: Hey thanks for having me, I’m Kit, I’m 27 years old living in Bristol, UK. I live for the most part on a day to day basis, which I think comes across through the various styles of music I upload.

Ustiniya: My name is Ustinia Smolievskaya, I’m from Moscow, Russia. I have an art academic education and I also work as a graphic designer. Photography began to attract me when I was still in college, where we had a small course in photography. But consciously and seriously I started doing it recently, about a year ago. For me photography is the perfect visual language in which I see my creativity, there are no frames in it. Therefore, in my photos there is a synthesis of different directions. I do not limit myself to visual means. There is practically nothing left of the original, I use a lot of analog tools: printing, scanning, drawing from a photo, but I also process it in Photoshop. Basically the process goes by itself, initially there is some image in my head, but when I start working everything goes by itself. Therefore, most likely in my works there is a surrealism, it is something from the subconscious. Mostly I have women in my work because when I started only my friends and I posed for me, but besides that I am more attracted to the aesthetics of the female body than the male one. Although I think that in the future I will try different things. I have a lot of self-portraits, it’s a kind of introspection and an attempt to look at myself from the outside, it helps me. Anything can inspire me: people, the weather outside the window, books, movies, pictures, color (I love color), in general all the surrounding life. It is impossible to single out any specific topic in the works, it can be anything. I believe that the main criterion in creativity is sincerity, without it nothing will work.

Ustiniya: The video is an interpretation of a well-known psychological test – the Rorschach test. I wanted everyone to see something different in this video. Everyone has their own perception, opinion, experience, taste, fears, associations, and when watching this video, in which there is generally no semantic load, everyone has completely different emotions. Someone had a feeling of fear and tension, someone, on the contrary, had a feeling of peace and harmony, someone had associations with some animals, and someone even saw “sexuality”.

What’s your favourite part of the day to do creative work?

4TUNE: I finish work around 10pm most nights so tend to produce late into the early morning in that sleep state.

Ustiniya: I like to work in the evening. It’s always kind of quiet at this time. 

What is your driving force in life?

Ustiniya: Sincerity. I think this is the most important thing.

4TUNE: Understanding myself and how I sit with others around me.