The lecture examines how images of science are weaponised to project state power. By viewing the crime laboratory as a cinematic stage set, Mark Cinkevich will analyse archival newsreels to reverse-engineer the props, equipment, and visual cues that project scientific legitimacy. Rooted in the key method behind the film Terror Element (2025), created together with Anna Engelhardt, he will uncover how science is staged to construct narratives of authority framed as objective truth.

Mark Cinkevich is a researcher and artist exploring how infrastructures and visual technologies organize power. His work addresses infrastructural coloniality, operational images, and visual monstrosity through text and moving image. His projects have been presented internationally, including at transmediale (Berlin), BFI London Film Festival (London), Ars Electronica (Linz), Henie Onstad Triennial (Oslo), and Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (Vilnius).