Martyna Marciniak
Anatomy of Non-Fact. Chapter 1: AI Hyperrealism

Exhibition
31 March–22 May 2026
Kino Šiška, Ljubljana

Opening
TUE, 31 March at 21 PM

Part of tactics&practice #17: Becoming Image
Curated by Marco De Mutiis

In AI Hyperrealism, Martyna Marciniak materializes the puffer jacket made infamously viral by the AI-generated image of the so-called Balenciaga Pope. The image was originally created by a 31-year-old man named Pablo Xavier using Midjourney, while he was tripping on shrooms, and quickly became the symbol of the AI boom of 2023. It reignited discussions about truth and misinformation in photography and journalism, and sparked controversies about digital reproduction of human likeness.

In AI Hyperrealism, the first chapter of Marciniak’s Anatomy of Non-Fact project, the artist inverts the relations between physical and virtual, between material object and image, and between experienced and perceived reality. By creating the infamous puffer jacket, the artist transforms the image into material reality and makes the collective imagination of Pope Francis’s stylish coat tangible. AI Hyperrealism also connects with the present shift in commercial fields based on economies of attention – where goods exist first solely as synthetic images, to be produced only if the AI image seduces the gaze of enough potential buyers.

Accompanying the installation is a short video featuring the Balenciaga Pope monologuing about notions of truth and questioning the reliability of images and traditional sources of authority. Reflecting on the contemporary role of photography and visual culture, the work explores the implications of a world shaped, and even entirely built, from synthetic images.

THE AUTHOR

Martyna Marciniak’s practice bridges media theory and legal imaginaries to trace how power inscribes itself through image regimes and visual infrastructures. Often revisiting historical events, her work engages in a form of pataforensics – poking at the tropes of scientific and forensic aesthetics, revealing their uncertainties, contradictions and lapses. Oscillating between sculpture, video and animation, she writes visual counter histories and smuggles in other ways of seeing. Her work has been shown by Onassis Stegi, Copenhagen Contemporary, Ars Electronica, Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen, Warsaw Biennale, LABoral Centro de Arte, among others. She is the 2025 CERN Collide resident. Her project Anatomy of Non-Fact received the Award of Distinction Prix Ars Electronica in 2025.

[+] RELATED ACTIVITIES

ARTIST TALK

Martyna Marciniak
Blobsters, Slop and Hyper-Events: Negotiating Visual Trust in a Post-Optical Era
Tue, 31 March 2026 at 5 PM
Kino Šiška, Ljubljana