Irina’s photography operates as a mechanism of control, transforming male bodies into aesthetic objects while simultaneously reinforcing the very visual hierarchies it seeks to subvert. Our first introduction to her work-“a boy kneeling, his tongue between my index and middle finger”-immediately positions the male subject as passive and consumable, reversing the traditional gendered dynamics of looking.

“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed,” (Sontag) this situates the camera as an instrument of possession and power. Irina’s subjects are often vulnerable to her; because of their youth, their desire for her or their insecurity, yet she makes them meaningful through her lens. Irina wields her control like a weapon as she manipulates these men at her will. Photography becomes the primary site through which Irina performs monstrosity, allowing her to transform people into aesthetic objects that can be controlled and consumed. With her camera, she assumes the role traditionally occupied by patriarchal systems of looking, however her attempts at reclaiming visual power reproduce the same violence and dehumanisation she seeks to resist. This idea of ownership behind the lens of her camera becomes explicit in Irina’s treatment of the homeless “boy from the bus stop,” she describes him as “naked and betrayed,” his vulnerability is aestheticised and controlled, as she admits, “I tried to get him to let me hit him.” Her repeated reference to him as “my boy”underscores this logic of ownership, in which the photographed subject is not only captured but absorbed into her authorship. The language of possession here transforms Irina into a predatory figure whose monstrosity lies in her compulsive need to aestheticise and dominate vulnerability itself.

Furthermore, this authority is also demonstrated by her manipulation of Will, whose staged femininity (“lip gloss…false eyelashes”) and sexual exposure (“I don’t think I set out to take photos of him out-and-out wanking, but things escalate”) collapse into a spectacle he cannot control when Irina shows Henson (Will’s friend) the images. Although Irina demonstrates an awareness of visual politics, her practice ultimately reveals the persistence of the structures she claims to critique. Mulvey suggests, “a politically and aesthetically avant-garde cinema…can still only exist as a counterpoint,” she indicates that even subversive visual forms remain dependent upon the dominant gaze they oppose. Irina's work, therefore, does not escape objectification but reconfigures it, positioning her simultaneously as both subject and orchestrator of the gaze. This dynamic intensifies when Irina inserts herself into the frame, collapsing the distance she strives to maintain between photographer and subject, making her authorship violently explicit. During her final shoot with Eddie from Tesco, she “pull[s] down his underwear and brandish[es] the wine bottle,” describing his pain as he “squeals” and “flinches.” In other images, she describes “a welt in the shape of [her] hand,” and “bruises around his neck,” reducing him to a series of marks rather than a person she once had a connection with. This particular shoot becomes a record that captures Eddie’s vulnerability and Irina’s violence. When Irina appears in the film recording of the shoot, “I take a minute to stand over him…like one of those…high school boys hover-handing a hot girl. I’ll edit that out,” there is only domination, and only some parts of her appearance are exhibited in the final image. Sontag’s assertion that the “camera record incriminates,” further defines Irina’s power as she controls how she is perceived.

This ambivalent form of empowerment is further complicated by what Nancy Fraser terms a “dangerous liaison between feminism and marketization,” as Irina’s artistic practice transforms acts of violation into a consumable product, aligning aesthetic experimentation (beyond ethics and mortality) with commodifiable value. Her photographs construct a reality, despite this, her authority begins to fracture as her perception becomes unreliable, exemplified when the imagined “glass” in John’s face “Three pieces…cheek, forehead, eye,” is exposed as an illusion. Although photographs traditionally “furnish evidence,” in Irina’s case they destabilise the truth, revealing the extent to which her sense of reality, and her own existence, is mediated through the images she produces. Therefore, photography becomes both a means of asserting control and the site of her collapse, this is what makes Irina a contemporary monster as her desire to possess, document, and authenticate exposes the fragility of her own psyche.