New Realities: Design – Arts – Technology

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London. FA undertakes advanced spatial and media investigations into cases of human rights violations, with and on behalf of communities affected by political violence, human rights organisations, international prosecutors, environmental justice groups, and media organisations. The agency regards the common elements of our built environment – buildings, details, cities, and landscapes, as well as their representations in media and as data – as entry points from which to investigate human rights violations that took place there.

FA was established in 2010 by Eyal Weizman, together with a group of fellow architects, artists, filmmakers, journalists, scientists, and lawyers. The agency undertakes independent research or acts on commission from international prosecutors and environmental and human rights groups to investigate state and corporate violence, especially when it bears upon the built environment.

In this talk, Eyal Weizman offers insights into FA’s work and shows how to locate incidents in their historical contexts and pull, from their microphysical details, the longer sociopolitical threads and implications in order to contextualise them. According to Weizman, Forensic Architecture uses the term «forensics» however, they seek instead to reverse the forensic gaze and to investigate the same state agencies – such as the police or the military – that usually monopolise and claim it.

Eyal Weizman is the founding director of Forensic Architecture and Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he founded the Centre for Research Architecture in 2005. The author of over 15 books has conducted research and taught at many universities worldwide. He was a Global Scholar at Princeton University and a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He is a member of several managing and advisory boards, including the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court and the board of trustees of the Centre for Investigative Journalism. He is also a founding member of the architectural collective DAAR in Beit Sahour/Palestine. Currently, Eyal Weizman is a visiting professor at the Swiss Institute of Technology ETH in Zurich.

When?
September 17th, 2020, 12:30 pm

Where?
Cinema Toni, 3.G02 (level 3) [live video feed]

Website:
forensic-architecture.org

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