Martyna Marciniak presents her latest work at ARS ELECTRONICA

During the five days of the festival, the theme exhibition, entitled »HOPE: the touch of many«, inhabits once again the architecture of the POSTCITY’s bunker in Linz and unfolds as a shared space and a contact zone. It is a tapestry of conceptual, sensual and emotional journeys through and within artistic inquiries and research domains. It is also an interface that reveals the collaborative and empowering endeavours of ARS ELECTRONICA, its multiple partnerships and commitments.

As part of ARS ELECTRONICA’s theme exhibition, current Solitude fellow Martyna Marciniak presents her latest work Anatomy of Non-Fact, which was developed at the Akademie Schloss Solitude during her fellowship.

In an age of visual communication marked by fakes and hoaxes, it’s crucial to recognize when aesthetics take precedence over facts. The first chapter of the ongoing project: Anatomy of Non-Fact questions whether visual truth is material or »in the eye of the beholder«? The work engages with the hyperrealism of the so-called »Balenciaga Pope« image, which captured the attention and imagination of many during the »AI-boom« of 2023. The audience will be confronted with a reconstruction of this AI-event, in the form of a physical display with textile elements and a short film.
By creating a heightened sensation of the uncanny, a state of perpetual semi-recognition, in intensifying conflict between sensing and sense-making, the work aims to empower the viewer. It also sets out to catalog and demystify some of the elements of the established visual languages of fact, with their inherent biases, lapses and misleading tropes.

Further information about the work and ARS ELECTRONICA can be found here.