Forensic Architecture

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Forensic Architecture refers to the work of expert witnesses presenting spatial analysis in a legal forums. Their practice combines the principles of property surveying, structural engineering, the physics of blast forces and the chemistry of composite materials. "Forensic Architecture" also refers to an analytic process that involves the investigation of building envelopes (walls, windows, curtain walls, roofing systems, etc.), waterproofing systems, fire resistive wall or ceiling assemblies, building materials, structural assemblies, and numerous other aspects of buildings. It is practiced by licensed architects within a jurisdiction.

Research Project

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research project and consultancy agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London. They undertake advanced architectural and media research on behalf of human rights (HR) groups, those investigating or prosecuting crimes under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as well as political and environmental justice groups.It refers to the production and presentation of architectural evidence – buildings and larger environments and their media representations.

In this context Forensic Architecture refers to an analytical method for reconstructing scenes of violence as they are inscribed within spatial artefacts and environments.

Background

As contemporary conflicts increasingly take place within urban areas, homes and neighbourhoods become targets and most civilian casualties occur within cities and buildings. Urban battlefields have become dense data and media environments, generating information that is shared on social and mainstream media. Many violations, undertaken within cities and buildings, are now caught on camera and are made available almost instantly. The premise of FA is that analysing IHL and HR violations must involve modelling dynamic events as they unfold in space and time and creating navigable 3D models of environments undergoing conflict, as well as the creation of filmic animations, and interactive cartographies on the urban or architectural scale.

The project brings different modes of technical visualisation, modelling and analysis to bear upon violations of human rights and the laws of war as they are registered in and by space. The project team examines remnants of violence as inscribed in built environments and landscapes, but also as captured by different media – satellite imagery, GPS, radar and other remote sensing technologies; footage from news report, activists and CCTV; photography and video from hand-held devices or eyewitness reports.

Through the synthesis of these multiple sources, each investigation seek to recreate a chain of events and elaborate upon their legal consequences; making legible the multiple forces at play within sites of violence. Once this data is compiled and cross-referenced it can be used in courts, tribunals, and human rights organisations — the multiple forums of international justice.

Field and Forum

As derived from its Latin source, forensics is the art of the forum; the practice and skill of presenting an argument before a professional, political, or legal gathering. Forensics includes not only the speech acts of humans, but also the interpreted speech of things, mediated by an expert or a set of technologies. The art of forensics thus includes both field-work and forum-work. Although forensics is generally understood as the application of science in service to the law, that is to say, as an investigative tool within the field, forensics is also a tool of persuasion that uses science rhetorically to speak within public and legal forums.

Funding and Hosting

Funded since 2011 by the European Research Council[1] the research project Forensic Architecture is hosted by Goldsmiths, University of London within the Department of Visual Cultures. Based at the Centre for Research Architecture, the multidisciplinary project team includes architects, artists, geographers, scientists, information designers, jurists and media scholars.[2]

Partners and associate organisations:

Publications

  • Weizman, Eyal (Ed). FORENSIS: The Architecture of Public Truth, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014.
  • Keenan, Thomas and Weizman, Eyal. Mengele's Skull: The Advent of a Forensic Aesthetics. Ed. Portikus: Sternberg Press, 2012.
  • Weizman, Eyal. Forensic Architecture - dOCUMENTA 13 Notebook (Hatje Cantz, 2012)
  • Pereira, Godofredo (Ed.) Savage Objects. Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda (INCM), 2012. Including essays by Pereira, Godofredo ("Savage Objects"); Hameed, Ayesha ("The Petrification of the Image"); Schuppli, Susan ("Impure Matter: A Forensics of WTC Dust")
  • Weizman, Eyal. The Least of All Possible Evils (London: Verso, 2011)
  • Schuppli, Susan. "Material Malfeasance: Trace Evidence of Violence in Three Image-Acts." In Contested Evidence, Photoworks Issue 17 (Brighton, England: Photoworks, 2011): 28-33.
  • Heller, Charles. "Image Migrations." In Contested Evidence, Photoworks Issue 17 (Brighton, England: Photoworks, 2011): 80-81.
  • Najafi, Sina / Weizman, Eyal (ed.) "Forensics" issue of Cabinet 43, Fall 2011. Including texts by Eyal Weizman & Thomas Keenan ("Mengele's Skull" and "Osteobiography: an interview with Clyde Snow"); Alain Pottage ("Forensic machinery"); Lawrence Abu Hamdan ("The Freedom of Speech Itself"); Susan Schuppli ("Tape 342"); Godofredo Pereira ("Dead commodities"); Greg Siegel ("The Similitude of the Wound"); Paulo Tavares ("Murky Evidence").
  • Tozzi, Lucia (ed.) "Architettura Forense / Forensic Architecture" special file in Abitare 506; 508-510. Including texts by Eyal Weizman; Lorenzo Pezzani; Paulo Tavares; Füsun Türetken.
  • Di Carlo, Tina. "Dying to Speak: Forensic Spatiality." (Interview with Eyal Weizman) Log 20, Fall (2010)
  • Weizman, Eyal. "Forensic Architecture: Only the Criminal Can Solve the Crime." Radical Philosophy 164, Nov/Dec (2010): 9-24.
  • Weizman, Eyal / Tavares, Paulo / Schuppli, Susan / Situ Studio. "Forensic Architecture." In Post-Traumatic Urbanism: Architectural Design. Eds. Charles Rice, Adrian Lahoud, Anthony Burke. Vol. 80: Wiley, 2010. 58-63. " Architectural Design 80 5 (2010): 58-63.

Exhibitions

  • "Forensis". 15 March-5 May 2014 at [1]. Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Nabil Ahmed, Maayan Amir, Anthropocene Observatory, Jacob Burns, Gabriel Cuéllar, DAAR, Forensic Oceanography, Grupa Spomenik, Ayesha Hameed, Samir Harb, Helene Kazan, Thomas Keenan, Steffen Kraemer, Adrian Lahoud, Model Court Group, Modelling Kivalina Group, Gerald Nestler, Godofredo Pereira, Nicola Perugini, ScanLAB Projects, Susan Schuppli, Francesco Sebregondi, Shela Sheikh, SITU Research, Caroline Sturdy Colls, Paulo Tavares, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss/NAO, Eyal Weizman, Ines Weizman.

Curated by Anselm Franke & Eyal Weizman

  • Mengele's Skull: The Advent of a Forensic Aesthetics. 4 February - 6 May 2012 at Portikus. Hito Steyerl, Thomas Keenan & Eyal Weizman, Paulo Tavares. Curated by Anselm Franke
  • Aural Contract: The Freedom of Speech itself. 1 February - 17 March 2012 at The Showroom. Lawrence Abu Hamdan
  • Model Court. 17–31 March 2011 at Koh-i-noor. Model Court Group: Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Oliver Rees, Lorenzo Pezzani and Lawrence Abu Hamdan
  • Krimiseries: Evidence, Narrative and the Forensic Imagination. 26 June - 26 September 2010 at Museum London. Mac Adams, Deimantas Narkevicius, Raqs Media Collective, Susan Schuppli, Renata Stih & Frieder Schnock. Curated by Shauna McCabe

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ http://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/erc_2010_stg_results_all%20domains.pdf
  2. ↑ http://cms.gold.ac.uk/forensic-architecture/

External links

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