Video installation

This work explores misinformation in the context of the imminent threat of post-optical images or images constructed through processes not perceptible to the human eye, such as computation. It is part of an investigation with which the artist seeks a definition of the aesthetics of facts through an in-depth analysis of visual deceptions, falsifications and conspiracies in the digital environment.

As part of this research, Anatomy of Non-facts: AI Hyperrealism focuses on the figure of the fake Papa Balenciaga, who captured the attention and curiosity of many during the so-called “AI boom” of 2023. In the video piece, the mechanisms of generative AI, visual journalistic languages and digital cloning are augmented, partly stultified, and reified. A monologue reflecting on the nature of facts, delivered by Pope Balenciaga, confronts the viewer’s expectations about the authority of truth and the photographic image. A series of definitions, old and new, are woven throughout the video, rethinking existing terminologies related to AI-generated images and renaming phenomena linked to issues of misinformation.

In the exhibition space, the public encounters a materialized version of Pope Balenciaga’s coat: all the impossibilities, lapses and failures of the synthetic artifact are physically reconstructed, while references to the history of visual truth, from the Baroque to the new concepts and realities arising from AI-generated images, are embroidered on the lining of the coat.

Artist: Martyna Marciniak

Work included in the exhibition Digital Machines: Technology, Industry, Society.

CREDITS

AI Hyperrealism is the first chapter of the art and research project Anatomy of Non-Fact, which was presented at the Ars Electronica 2024 Festival in the framework of the European Digital Deal Residency program with the support of the Creative Europe Program of the European Union.

Written, produced and directed by: Martyna Marciniak

Papa Balenciaga played by: Derrick Jenkins

Hands played by Rojia Forouhar Abadeh, Martyna Marciniak, Kotryna Slapsinskaite,

Sound design and scoring: Marco Pascarelli

Production Direction: Kotryna Slapsinskaite

Videography: Hagen Betzwieser

Technical design consultant: Edward Grace

Design consultant: Joanne Grace

Technical advisor: Jan Schluter of Johannes Kepler University