Anatomy of non-fact | A workshop with Martyna Marciniak

The workshop was an introduction to the visual literacy methods necessary for tackling the topic of visual misinformation. Drawing on her experience as an artist, 3D designer, and forensic researcher, Martyna Marciniak introduced the participants to a range of techniques for identifying synthetic images and their characteristics: from basic strategies of image verification to critical media theory and forensic visual analysis. 

These skills were later applied to selected case studies, further informing the development of a vocabulary of visual tropes and aesthetic qualities that are associated with visual evidence, and which are simultaneously used to fabricate trust. 

In the final stage of the workshop the participants turned selected ‘deep-fakes’ into ‘deep realities’ by constructing a network of new images, which validate the original fake. This exercise employed mostly analogue tools in the image-making process, to more visibly heighten the visual components of aesthetics of (non)fact: the visual biases, media lapses and stylistic manipulations.

This was the first session of the Estudio de Sistemas (Study of Systems), a regular program of workshops, talks, and seminars aimed at fostering creative intuition and methodological experimentation around emerging and unstable technologies. 

About Martyna Marciniak  

Martyna Marciniak is a Polish, Berlin-based artist, researcher and 3D designer. Her work is an exploration of visual storytelling, and involves animation, film, writing and model-making. 

As a researcher, Martyna uses visual storytelling to draw attention to systemic violence and human-rights abuses. Her art practice relies on speculative fictions and allegory to expose technological and visual biases, while bridging the domains of aesthetics, law, politics and media theory. 

She has worked with Forensic Architecture, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among other NGOs. Her co-established research group Border Emergency Collective investigated and documented stories of migrating people at the Polish-Belarusian border. She was an artist in residence at Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 2018, at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2024, and at transmediale in 2026. Her work has been shown at the Ars Electronica Festival, Warsaw Biennale, Kinema ICON in Bucharest, Haus Gropius in Dessau and deTour Festival in Hong Kong, among others.