Forensic Architecture

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Forensic Architecture logo
Founder and head of Eyal Weizman 2012

Forensic Architecture is an independent art and research agency founded in 2011 under the direction of Eyal Weizman and based at the Center for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London .

Counter Forensic

Founder Eyal Weizman recognized the political possibilities of architecture early on: “It is not just a set of techniques and technologies that enable you to build better houses and other buildings. Architecture is also a very powerful analytical tool, especially when the real crime is already poured into architecture, and that is the case in the West Bank . ”Since its inception in 2011, the think tank developed the idea of Counter Forensic against what it believes to be state disinformation and increasingly uses them in investigations into human rights violations and state violence. For this purpose, pictures, videos and other information are compiled in painstaking detail and modeled and visualized in an interdisciplinary manner in terms of place and time. The evaluations are understood as counter-evidence to the state's information policy and are prepared in a creative way both for court hearings and for exhibitions.

Client and financing

Forensic Architecture works exclusively for civilian victims, NGOs and independent associations and is co-financed by the European Research Council for individual projects .

The five sponsors for 2019 were:

Investigations

Forensic Architecture's research is based on two premises: State violence leaves traces, and the decision-makers have the power to eradicate them. Forensic Architecture dealt with the following investigations:

  • Investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire
  • Murder case Halit Yozgat (NSU complex): The constitutional protector Andreas Temme was sitting in the back room of the internet café where Yozgat was shot on April 6, 2006 and, according to the witness protocol, did not notice the murder. The researchers evaluated crime scene photos, witness statements, leaked police files and the computer's browser history. With an actor of the same size, they recreated what happened in a reconstruction of the crime scene and also brought in an acoustics specialist. The researchers came to the conclusion that Temme heard the shot and must have seen the body when leaving the café. The simulation was exhibited at Documenta 14 .
  • Model of the Syrian torture prison Saydnaya
  • Investigation into the boat accident off Tripoli in 2011
  • Investigation Mare Clausum by Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani cooperation of Italy with the Libyan Coast Guard (annexed by plaintiffs in May 2018 as evidence of an application to the European Court of Human Rights).
  • Investigation into the alleged collaboration between the Juventa crew operating sea rescue operations in the Mediterranean and Libyan people smugglers. So far there is no trial, no trial against youth saves; other paragraphs were used to seize the ship Juventa . The research results of Forensic Architecture will be shown as a three-dimensional simulation in 2018 at Manifesta 12 in Palermo in order to create a counter-public beyond the television images and courtrooms.
  • During Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip , Israel reportedly used ammunition containing white phosphorus in densely populated Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 . The self-igniting white phosphorus was used to generate fog , which injured and killed civilians. Forensic Architecture examined the explosion of such a grenade and modeled the spread of the burning chemical based on the wind conditions. The report was presented by human rights activists at the UN in Geneva in 2012 and attached as evidence to a petition before the Israeli Court of Justice in 2013. In April 2013, the Israeli military promised to stop using white phosphorus grenades in populated areas. The Israeli Court of Justice then declined to refer to the matter in July 2013.
  • In the course of Operation Protective Edge , civilian casualties were incurred in Israeli attacks on Rafah following the alleged kidnapping of the Israeli lieutenant Hadar Goldin on August 1, 2014 by Hamas . Forensic Architecture prepared a report based on interviews with witnesses, video and photo shoot, from which the researchers were derived that Hannibal Directive of the Israeli army had been applied in excessive form. The Israeli military withdrew the directive in 2016 following public allegations and internal investigations into what was known as Black Friday. The documentary was shown as the film Hannibal in Rafah at the Berlinale in 2016.
  • When Israeli security forces attempted to evacuate the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev in January 2017, a 47-year-old math teacher was shot in his car because, according to the Israeli authorities, he carried out an Islamistically motivated attack and killed a police officer in the process. Forensic Architecture investigated the case with Israeli partners and uncovered contradictions in the official account. Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel apologized publicly in March 2017 for "serious mistakes that have been made" and later it came to light that a Shin Bet report drawn up immediately after the incident ruled out evidence of an assassination attempt and serious cited operational errors by the security forces as the cause of the event.
  • Together with the New York Times , Forensic Architecture carried out an extensive investigation in 2018 into the case of the Palestinian rescue worker Rouzan al-Najjar , who was fatally hit in the Gaza Strip by the supersonic projectile of an Israeli sniper , for which 3-D images of the site were made using drones and more than 1,000 Photos and video recordings were evaluated and about 30 witnesses were interviewed. The results became one of the bases of the UN Human Rights Council's assessment of the case . While former Pentagon legal advisor and professor at New York University School of Law , Ryan Goldman, confirmed the résumé of the investigation that it was a possible war crime, Ira Stoll stated in The Algemeiner that the results of the investigation were one-sided and "everything dignified behavior, but only the old Israel bashing "," which you can get for free on any extreme right or extreme left Internet site or a similar social media feed. "
  • In the murder case of the Kurdish lawyer and president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association Tahir Elci , they came to the conclusion in February 2019 based on a 3D reconstruction commissioned by the Amed Bar Association that two police officers are suspected of having shot Elçi.
  • In the Nivin case, Forensic Oceanography, part of Forensic Architecture, examined the role of Italy and the EU in the rescue and repatriation of migrants in international waters by the cargo ship Nivin registered in Panama . The migrants were returned to Libya and the Global Legal Action Network filed a complaint against Italy and other EU countries with the UN Human Rights Council in December 2019 on behalf of a young person who was gunshot in the process in Libya and was later ill-treated and used for forced labor .

Litigation support

Forensic Architecture is one of the supporters of the lawsuit brought by 17 Nigerian citizens against Italy before the European Court of Human Rights , along with other NGOs . The plaintiffs accuse Italy of violating their human rights by hiring the Libyan Coast Guard to carry out the sea rescue in their case. Of the 17 plaintiffs, 2 were rescued by the Libyan coast guard and brought back to Libya. They were tortured there. After they agreed to return to their home country, Nigeria, they were brought back there. Representatives of Italy defended the cooperation with the Libyan coast guard and said that many people had been saved and that the number of migrants who entrusted their lives to Libyan smugglers and unseaworthy rubber dinghies could also be reduced.

reception

Forensic Architecture works with various NGOs ; that the boundaries between science and activism blur is intentional. Forensic Architecture's work is political per se . This is shown, among other things, by the fact that Weizmann occasionally receives death threats.

Exhibitions

Not every procedure ends up in a court of law, which is why Forensic Architecture is dependent on other forums. Exhibitions would be used as alternative courtrooms and thus the public would be supplied with Forensic Architecture's work.

important exhibitions
institution city year title
Whitney Biennial new York 2019 Video: "Triple Chaser"
Institute of Contemporary Arts London 2018 Counter Investigations: Forensic Architecture
Schirn art gallery Frankfurt am Main 2018 Power to the People: Political Art Now
Film "Bil'in" (2009)
Museu d'Art Contemporani Barcelona 2017 Forensic Architecture: Towards an Investigative Aesthetics
University Museum of Contemporary Art Mexico city 2017 Forensic Architecture: Towards an Investigative Aesthetics
Documenta 14 kassel 2017 "77sqm_9: 26min" (film about the Halit Yozgat case)
Shanghai Biennale 11 Shanghai 2016/2017 "Liquid Traces" (film about the Left-to-Die Boat)
Biennial Venice 2016 Reporting from the front
Fundación Proa Buenos Aires 2015 Forensis
House of World Cultures Berlin 2014 Forensis

Awards

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Using image analyzes to clear up human rights violations ( memento of July 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). BR2 September 15, 2017
  2. ↑ a b c Antje Stahl: These architects document crimes against humanity . NZZ March 7, 2018, accessed June 3, 2018
  3. ↑ "Funders" forensic-architecture.org, accessed on May 12, 2019
  4. ↑ Mladen Gladić: dirt in the light. Grenfell fire, NSU murder: Forensic Architecture reconstruct the link between crime and politics. In: Friday, June 14, 2018, p. 13
  5. ↑ Mladen Gladić: dirt in the light. Grenfell fire, NSU murder: Forensic Architecture reconstruct the link between crime and politics. In: Friday, June 14, 2018, p. 13
  6. ^ Sören Kittel: British research collective also reconstructs NSU murder . Westfälische Rundschau, July 6, 2018, accessed July 18, 2018
  7. ↑ Stefanie Kirchgaessner and Lorenzo Tondo: Italy's deal with Libya to 'pull back' migrants faces legal challenge . Guardian, May 8, 2018, accessed June 27, 2018
  8. ↑ Harriet Hagerholm: Italy sued over migrant 'push back' deal with Libya after 20 migrants drown in Mediterranean . Independent, May 8, 2018, accessed June 27, 2018
  9. ↑ Catrin Lorch: In distress . Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 12, 2018, accessed July 13, 2018
  10. ↑ 'IDF white phosphorus use not illegal' . In: The Jerusalem Post , January 13, 2009. Retrieved March 24, 2010. 
  11. ^ Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza . March 25, 2009. Retrieved July 2019. PDF
  12. ^ Andrew Curry: The Rise of Forensic Architecture . Architect, April 24, 2017, accessed July 15, 2018
  13. ^ Gili Cohen: IDF to Stop Using Shells With White Phosphorus in Populated Areas, State Tells High Court . Haaretz, May 13, 2013, accessed July 15, 2018
  14. ^ White phosphorus petition (Israeli High Court of Justice) . weaponslaw.org, accessed July 15, 2018
  15. ↑ Sudarsan Raghavan, Griff Witte: Attack near UN shelter leaves 10 dead as Israel pulls most ground troops from Gaza . WP, August 3, 2014; Retrieved August 4, 2014
  16. ↑ Lizzie Dearden: Israel accused of killing 75 children during the day of 'carnage' and war crimes in Gaza war . Independent, July 29, 2015, accessed July 15, 2018
  17. ^ Strong Evidence 'of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza, Says New Amnesty Report . Newsweek, July 29, 2015, accessed July 15, 2018
  18. ↑ Raf Sanchez: Israel ends the 'Hannibal Directive' - military policy to kill your own troops rather than let them be captured . Telegraph, June 29, 2016, accessed July 15, 2018
  19. ↑ Hannibal in Rafah: A reconstruction of one bloody day in the 2014 Gaza War from user generated videos . Film data sheet Berlinale, accessed July 15, 2018
  20. ^ Michael Kimmelmann: Forensics Helps Widen Architecture's Mission . New York Times, April 6, 2018, accessed July 17, 2018
  21. ^ Minister apologizes to Bedouin over Umm al-Hiran incident. In: The Times of Israel . March 6, 2017, accessed June 26, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Michael Bachner: Shin Bet report said to have ruled out terror in Bedouin village car-ramming . Times of Israel, June 11, 2018, accessed July 17, 2018
  23. ↑ New York Times , Yousur al-Hlou, Malachy Browne, Johnn Woo, David M. Halbfinger, “Visual Investigations: An Israeli Soldier Killed a Medic in Gaza. We Investigated the Fatal Shot ", December 30, 2018 :" 120 yards "(= 109 meters); Forensic Architecture , The Killing of Rouzan al-Najjar ; Times of Israel , "After Damning-Report IDF says it is probing Killing of Gazan Medic in June," December 30, 2018
  24. ↑ United Nations Human Rights Council , "Report of the detailed findings of the independent international Commission of inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory", March 18, 2019, pp. 151 f., 213, 215 .
  25. ↑ New York Times , “A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?” December 30, 2018 : “The laws of war would not want any military personnel to deliberately fire in the direction of the medics. I'm not saying it's close to the line. I'm saying it crosses the line. "According to the Times, Israel considers unarmed members of Hamas fair game," an interpretation of international law that is not universally accepted. "
  26. ↑ cit. n. Jewish Telegraphic Agency , Andrew Silow-Carrol, “The New York Times says a Palestinian medic's death in Gaza could be a war crime”, December 31, 2018 : “'The New York Times' investigation,' for all its dignified trappings , is just the same old Israel-bashing you can get for free on any extreme right or extreme left Internet site or social media feed, 'Stoll writes in The Algemeiner'.
  27. ↑ New evidence of the murder of Tahir Elçi . ANF ​​News, February 9, 2019, accessed May 24, 2019
  28. ^ Privatised Push-Back of the Nivin . Forensic Architecture, accessed December 27, 2019.
  29. ↑ Italy faces complaint at UN over 'abusive' Libya asylum returns . France 24, December 18, 2019, accessed December 27, 2019.
  30. ↑ DPA International, Italy's migration deal with Libya challenged in European rights court , May 8, 2018
  31. ↑ Nicole Winfield: Migrants accuse Italy of responsibility for Libyan abuses . AP News May 8, 2018, accessed June 4, 2018
  32. ↑ Tageswoche, This Swiss citizen takes action against dying in the Mediterranean with big data , May 16, 2016.
  33. ^ Eileen Kinsella: In the Heart of the Whitney Biennial, Artists Are Working to Expose Board Member Warren Kanders's Link to Possible War Crimes . ArtNet News, May 13, 2019, accessed May 16, 2019
  34. ↑ Maria Sitte: The Art of Investigation . SchirnMag April 26, 2018, accessed June 8, 2018
  35. ^ The 11th Shanghai Biennale , accessed July 20, 2018.
  36. ↑ Princess Margriet Award for Culture , European Cultural Foundation, accessed June 4, 2018
  37. ^ Jacopo Prisco: Forensic Architecture wins the 2018 Beazley Design of the year award . CNN November 15, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018.