Between Punk and Science Fiction, BDSM and 1990s New York: Julia H Burlingham lends her unmistakable style to the Translantics Web series.

Julia H Burlingham is a well-rounded talent: Having trained as a photographer and video artist, she now also works as a film director, creative director and sometimes stylist. She has worked as a model and casting agent in the past. At 29 years old, Julia lends a personal touch to every production she is involved in – an aesthetic that is positioned somewhere between Punk and Science Fiction, BDSM and 1990s New York.

Just over three years ago, before she moved to Berlin, the New York-born artist would have described herself as a photographer, and nothing else. At the time, Julia was studying Photography, Video Art & Film at NYU. Julia’s father, also a photographer, first inspired her to take up this career when he set up a dark room in the family apartment in Tribeca. At 13 years old Julia was approached in the street by a model scout, encouraging her to work in front of the camera. She did not particularly pursue the experience: “It doesn’t feel totally natural and requires a lot of energy.” She became friends with the casting agent and started working for the agency as a street caster. She has always been very interested in people, watching them and capturing the moments they encounter.

When she was 16, Julia did an internship at the former New York publication - Index Magazine (1996-2005), where she worked with such legendary photographers as Richard Kern, Jürgen Teller, Terry Richardson, and Ryan McGinley. McGinley, who is now famous for his road trip snapshots, liked Julia’s unplanned and natural photos. “I am not interested or even probably capable of making a perfect, clean image. I like the roughness. It’s kind of crude in a way.”

Julia continued to develop the element of the natural or unprocessed in her own aesthetic: She made several music videos as a director and creative director, for example for the song “Aaron” by musician and "Translantics" actor Dan Bodan. She often works with the Swiss magazine Novembre, where she experiments with and crosses fashion boundaries, turning editorials into art, for example in the dystopian fashion productions “bEast M0de” and “NYC CTTV CT TV VT CC: Ilja Karilampi ft. Sandy Brown”. Julia always remained true to her authentic, playful roughness even when working on commercial projects, such as a campaign for Urban Outfitters, which she shot entirely on film. For this project, she wandered around Mexico City with the models for seven days and photographed them casually, without following a predefined plan. All of her photo shoots are and always have been spontaneous; she improvises, sometimes even casting new models during the production process. She regards this way of working as being “disorganized in organization”.

Things seem to have been similarly improvised during shooting for "Translantics". Julia was a defining influence in shaping the visual aesthetic of Britta Thie’s web series, acting not only as the co-director, but also as a location scout and creative director. She was responsible for the entire styling of the show. She chose individual items from various Berlin-based designers, such as Martin Niklas Wieser, but also used vintage pieces and the actors’ own clothes. According to Julia, about 20 percent of the clothing she uses are from her own wardrobe. Because the series is so eccentric, she “... thought it was a good opportunity to go a little bit crazy.” The first two episodes in particular play with a Futuristic look – a style Julia describes as “Cyber Goth” or “Cyber Punk”.

Punk is not just a current source of inspiration: as a teenager it provided her everyday look. “That was my thing. I was like a little punk. New York City punk, but also Patti Smith punk.” It had to be radical, but also taking cues from Vivienne Westwood and Margiela. Not necessarily political, “it wasn’t like I was anti anything.” In the end, Julia always did go for extremes: She took inspiration from photographs from German BDSM magazine GUM and collected odd accessories for her styling projects, for example the fake dental braces she bought from a YouTuber’s online shop. She actually got into styling as a makeshift solution, because she didn’t have the right partner for a photo project. “As a photographer I like to have a partnership with a stylist or another artist.” For a long time, this person was her friend Isabelle Phillippe, with whom she produced several videos, even during her time at NYU, for example her experimental photo booth clip “Haiku History”.

For some years now, Britta Thie has been Julia’s most important collaborator: The pair met in New York, as Britta was studying at Cooper Union for a year. “We bonded over shared ideas.” Julia sees "Translantics" as an extension and accumulation of all of the ideas they have come up with and realized over the years. This includes the radio show “Hung Up”: a program for BCR (Berlin Community Radio) combining electronic music and advice on love conundrums. Topics such as “Men who only send you emojis” and tips were discussed here: “Here’s is a piece of advice for you boys. It’s not cute to wear ironic cologne.” Julia has used Britta as a model in some of her own projects, for example in two campaigns for jewelry designer Arielle de Pinto. For ‘Special Service’, a collaborative project by Britta, Annika Kuhlmann and Julia Zange, Julia adapted the styling of “Anomaly”, a short film about fashion and music. “We’re all friends, but we also have worked together.”

At the moment Julia is working on the post production of the last series of "Translantics". The final episode takes place in New York. Julia regards it as taking a meta-reflective stance on the world of web series and the blurring of reality and fiction: “Everything is so interconnected.” Preston, a character who runs a casting agency in the series, is a new addition in this episode, which is based on the agency that discovered Julia when she was 13. Preston Chaunsumlit, the director of his own agency, also produces a web series titled “Model Files”. A parody of the New York casting world, it can be viewed on V-Files. Steven, another New York-based friend of Julia’s, Steven Phillips-Horst, directs a political and satirical web series called "Trailing". In "Translantics", Preston and Steven play the characters from their own web series: “Everyone is a character. Everyone is inventing themselves. So we thought it would be funny to cast these real life characters, who have also invented characters to play, and have them play those characters in our show.”

In this last installment, Julia also fills in as an actor. She plays a faceless model whose face is covered by a baseball cap. Her true home is behind the camera, after all.