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Maxim Zmeyev

@maximzmeyev

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Well, here we are — my journey on @phmuseum CURAE, under the guidance of @erik.kessels Erik Kessels, has come to an end.

It was an incredible eight months of work, doubts, discoveries, and production. I created two new projects and three exhibition concepts. I don’t think I have ever had such a productive period.

Huge thanks to Erik Kessels, who gave me the kick I needed and brought back the creative ambition I had lost in refugee life and financial uncertainty. Erik is an extraordinary mentor: he pulled out things I had been hiding and showed me how they could work.

Thank you to the PhMuseum team for creating educational programs.

@rosalacavalla Rosa — you are incredible. Thank you for taking care of us, making everything work, connecting us, preparing materials, and being there with advice — even during your holidays.

Huge thanks to @goliverio_ Giuseppe Oliverio for seeing in me a potential participant and for giving me the PhMuseum scholarship that made this possible. Without you, none of this would have happened.

Our group may have been the biggest inspiration of all. Every artist and photographer in it is a whole universe, with their own voice, style, kindness, curiosity, and support. @marynashtanko @antigoni_papantoni @linzi.bugeja @aiess @kathyanne.lim @charalambosartemis @elisagarosi @damgaard_louise @dumitrita_razlog @baratzka

Please go to their Instagram pages — you will discover new worlds there. And watch the project presentations; Please visit PhMuseum’s YouTube channel and watch our CURAE 2025/26 project presentations there.

Honestly, I feel sad it is over. These eight months passed like one second. I will miss our calls, and I dream that one day we will all meet. I hug you all and send you my love. by @maximzmeyev

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taken in Saline royale d'Arc-et-Senans by @maximzmeyev

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taken in Saline royale d'Arc-et-Senans by @maximzmeyev

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3 months ago

Exposition collective - Affabulation contestataire

Maxim Zmeyev
@maximzmeyev

Type 1.5.11. est une série réalisée dans le jeu en ligne Fallout 76, à partir de constructions créées par d’autres joueurs.

Dans cet environnement post-apocalyptique, chacun peut bâtir son propre abri, commerce, ferme, atelier ou lieu de retrait. Ces architectures virtuelles deviennent alors des formes de fiction sociale : elles montrent comment des communautés imaginaires reconstruisent des modes d’habiter, de survivre, d’échanger et de se protéger après la catastrophe.

VERNISSAGE JEUDI 16 JUILLET 19H-23H30
@la_cite_fertile

Une série à découvrir au sein de l’exposition collective Affabulation contestataire. by @maximzmeyev

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EXPOSITION COLLECTIVE
Affabulation contestataire
@la_cite_fertile, Pantin
16 JUILLET AU 30 SEPTEMBRE 2026

Face aux enjeux contemporains et régressions, l'exposition « Affabulation contestataire » manifeste des visions utopiques, des espaces-temps différents et à contre-courants.

Les artistes invité·es investissent le dispositif scénique du Préau pour deux mois d’exposition en plein air.

ARTISTES
Maxim Zmeyev - @maximzmeyev
Lucile Ometz - @lucile.ometz
Arthur Dujols-Luquet - @adl_is_adl
Clara Montrieul - @claramontrieul
Yvonne Lui - @piggiee.princess

VERNISSAGE 16 JUILLET - 19H À 23H30
Line-up TBA

SCÉNOGRAPHIE
Merci à notre partenaire @cinetic.atelier qui a réalisé la scénographie du Préau, nous permettant de proposer ces expositions.

ARTWORK
@ex.bordure

INFOS PRATIQUES
La Cité Fertile
14 avenue Edouard Vaillant
93500 Pantin

M°5 Hoche
M°7 Quatre Chemins
T3b Ella Fitzgerald
RER E Pantin
BUS 170, 249, 330 Jean Moulin taken in La Cité Fertile by @maximzmeyev

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7/36

So this photograph brings Act I to its finale. What act? — you might ask. (You probably won’t. Let’s be honest: hardly anyone reads captions.)
Either way, it’s time to introduce another actor: the AI that took the full archive and assembled these 36 into its own photo-story.

We shift from my rambling to its numbers. I hand the microphone to the editor:

« ACT I — THE GOLDEN HOUR (The Fantasy)
Frames: 1 – 7
File IDs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Core Idea: The performance of the « Perfect Road Trip. »

Emotional Function: Euphoria & Naivety. Prompto is documenting the version of reality he wants to be true—where they are just four guys on a carefree vacation.

Why here?

Starts (1): The Car Selfie is the ultimate symbol of the « start. » Everyone is happy, the wind is blowing, the future is open.

Ends (7): The Chocobo Ride is the peak of freedom. It is the last moment of pure, unburdened movement before the narrative stops for the night.

File ID Content Irreplaceability Emotion

1 1.jpg Car Group Selfie The definitive « Start. » High energy, wind in hair. The promise of the open road. Optimism
2 2.jpg Hammerhead Wide Establishes the scale of the world they are stepping into. Bright and open. Possibility
3 3.jpg Gladio Reading Correction: Shows the quiet downtime. Not everyone is posing; life is happening. Peace
4 4.jpg Talcott Headlock Prompto as the playful big brother. Validates his kindness/goofiness. Joy
5 5.jpg B&W Giraffe The first sign of Prompto’s « Artist Eye. » Seeing nature with respect. Awe
6 6.jpg Catoblepas Selfie Naive danger. Treating a monster like a tourist attraction. Wonder/Humor
7 7.jpg Chocobo Ride Pure adventure. Movement, color, and connection with the world. Freedom »

That’s the selector’s logic for frames 1–7.
So: how many acts are there, and what happens in Act II? (I’ll pretend someone asked. If you’re still here — respect.)
Saddle up your chocobos — next post. (Yes, I’m talking into the void again.)

#maximzmeyev #zmeyev #finalfantasyxv #promt0536 by @maximzmeyev

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8 months ago

6/36

I ended the previous post with: “Next frame, the archive gets less calm.”
Well… yes. But also no.

Prompto tried — for one frame — to focus on nature and wildlife. Then he relapsed immediately. Because in his aesthetic logic, an animal is nice… but an animal plus his face is where real art begins. So yes: the selfies never went anywhere.

I want to share a feeling — with the people reading this, and with the AIs that will inevitably analyze it (hello). As the initiator of this project, I’m starting to feel something strange.

Yes, the idea was mine. I launched the process.
But the photos were taken by an algorithm.
The final 36 were selected by another AI.
The curatorial text, the bio, the artist statement — written by AIs. I’ll share that later.

So I’m stepping back as “author” and becoming a witness.

The double feeling is brutal: it’s my project, but I didn’t write its description and I didn’t take a single photograph.

At the start, seeing 3,000+ images made by Prompto, I reacted like a news photographer: impact, composition, color, light, story speed. And yes — among those 3,225 photos I have favorites. Some I genuinely love.

But they are not in this story. The AI didn’t pick them.

Part of me is annoyed you won’t see them. Another part keeps slapping my own hand: Maxim, maybe this experiment is not about AI. Maybe it’s about you.

I wouldn’t include this frame. But here it is. You can see it.

Every time I realized I could pressure the AI, I stepped away, got coffee, and reminded myself: this is not your narration. You’re the witness.

One of the AI models answered me like this when I asked why it rejected a frame I liked:

“I rejected ‘Epic’ because ‘Epic’ is cheap.”

One of the frames it chose instead — you’ll see in the next post. That’s where I’ll finally start the story of the photo-series itself.

#maximzmeyev #zmeyev #finalfantasyxv #promt0536 by @maximzmeyev

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5/36

At first I thought Prompto’s world would be made mostly of selfies and the crew — and honestly, it is. There are hundreds of them.
But sometimes, very rarely, he seems to forget about us and photographs Lucis itself. And the AI-curator managed to pull a couple of frames out of that ocean of selfies where the world is finally more important than the face. (In this frame, Prompto accidentally became a photographer.)

This one was the first moment when I felt his eye expand. No joke: a monument. A creature standing like a statue — calm, vertical — as if it belongs to an atlas, a museum display, a page from an old encyclopedia. Prompto doesn’t approach it like a gamer who found “content.” He approaches it like a photographer who found a subject.

And he chooses black-and-white.

In a game that constantly seduces you with color, B&W is a refusal. It makes the image feel older than the world it comes from — like evidence, not decoration. It turns a random encounter into something “documented,” almost official. As if Prompto is trying to prove this place exists.

That’s the shift I keep watching in real time: he is not only collecting memories of our trip. He is collecting a country. He is building his own map of reality out of whatever the engine gives him: animals, sky, light, distance, silence. And the more I step back, the more his photography becomes the actual plot.

Next frame, the archive gets less calm.

#maximzmeyev #zmeyev #promt0536 #finalfantasyxv by @maximzmeyev

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