Yuri Chernyshev
It Wasn’t Me
2026
DIY object, video (length 7 minutes), audio, floor lamp (ready-made), chair (ready-made)
Courtesy of the author
Produced in the workshops of the Svody Art Production Centre at the GES-2 Community Centre, and at the Dar Truda industrial co-working space.
The ‘It Wasn’t Me’ project is based on the artist’s personal photo archive, consisting of photographs from his childhood and youth. These documentary shots, undeniable evidence of the past, were loaded into a neural network, which ‘animated’ the static images. AI also generated audio commentary for the events ‘captured’ in the video sequence, using Yuri Chernyshev’s real voice.
None of the generations were controlled by the author. The neural network generated images similar to the original, but distorted, similar to how our memory transforms past events. The resulting video is shown on television. The choice of this medium is deliberate. According to the concept of Canadian philosopher and media scholar Marshall McLuhan, the method of transmitting information, the medium itself, determines how the message will be perceived. Television is a source of socially important information. The author’s personal story, broadcast through it, becomes an expression of a universally significant problem – the functioning of memory.
But memories are not only distorted traces of events; they are also material for clarification, reflection and reassessment. These processes are reflected in the artist’s internal monologue. To hear it, the viewer must sit in a chair in front of the screen. In this monologue the artist attempts to recall what really happened by challenging, supplementing and refining the images distorted by the neural network. In this way Yuri Chernyshev explores, reveals and visualises the mechanisms of personal and collective memory.
