Thu, May 9, 2024

masters’ talks

7.30 pm — Event at DHub

Open to the public

Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture

Ungrounding

Eyal Weizman is the founder and director of Forensic Architecture and professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, where in 2005 the founded the Centre for Research Architecture. In 2007 he set up, with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, the architectural collective DAAR in Beit Sahour/Palestine. He is the author of many books, including Hollow Land, The Least of all Possible Evils, Investigative Aesthetics, The Roundabout Revolutions, The Conflict Shoreline and Forensic Architecture. Eyal held positions in many universities worldwide including Princeton, ETH Zurich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

He is a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court and of the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

In 2019 he was elected life fellow of the British Academy. In 2020 he received an MBE for ‘services to architecture’ and in 2021 the London Design Award. Forensic Architecture is the recipient of a Peabody Award for interactive media and the European Cultural Foundation Award for Culture.

Eyal studied architecture at the Architectural Association, graduating in 1998. He received his PhD in 2006 from the London Consortium at Birkbeck, University of London.

© David Ausserhofer / Robert Bosch Academy

Forensic Architecture  is a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London. Our mandate is to develop, employ, and disseminate new techniques, methods, and concepts for investigating state and corporate violence. Our team includes architects, software developers, filmmakers, investigative journalists, scientists, and lawyers.

We are an interdisciplinary agency operating across human rights, journalism, architecture, art and aesthetics, academia and the law; in 2022, the Peabody Awards programme wrote that we had co-created ‘an entire new academic field and emergent media practice’.

Sea Watch vs Libyan Coast Guard (with Forensic Oceanography) — An image projected onto a 3D model in order reconstruct the complicated scene of search-and-rescue operations by the Libyan Coastguard and NGO vessels on 6 November 2017. (Forensic Oceanography and Forensic Architecture, 2018)

Model Zoo — This rendered image of an armoured vehicle textured with random patterns is an ‘extreme object’. Machine learning classifiers that use rendered images of 3D models or “synthetic data” are known to improve when they are trained using extreme variations of the modelled object. (Forensic Architecture, 2020)

Airstrikes on M2 Hospital — There were a number of CCTV cameras in M2 Hospital that were continuously on, capturing every strike. Forensic Architecture located each camera and its orientation in the building in order to integrate footage from the CCTV cameras, handheld videos, and photographs within virtual space. (Forensic Architecture, 2017)

Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests — Selecting multiple filters lets a user compare violations across time and space. (Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat, 2020)

The Seizure of the Iuventa (with Forensic Oceanography) — By mapping the sky to the inside of a sphere, we track the motion of a mounted camera and match the drifting movements of the vessels in the scene. (Forensic Oceanography and Forensic Architecture, 2018)

Herbicidal Warfare in Gaza — A leaf from a local chard plant showing signs of possible herbicide damage after being sprayed in East Gaza. (Image: Shourideh C. Molavi)

The Beating of Faisal al-Natsheh — Superimposition of the models from the three witnesses we interviewed as they describe a convoy of soldiers escorting arrested Palestinian civilians to a militarised checkpoint in Hebron. (Forensic Architecture/Breaking the Silence, 2020)

A still image from the Conquer and Divide platform. (Forensic Architecture / B’Tselem)

Tear Gas in Plaza de la Dignidad — ‘Identifying clouds of tear gas’ The automated system helps identify the exact time and location of visible CS clouds. Analysis of teargas in Plaza de la Dignidad based on footage from Galería CIMA. (Forensic Architecture, 2020)

Chemical Attacks in Al Lataminah — Four debris fragments collected from Al Lataminah are turned into three-dimensional models, and recomposed inside our model of the M4000 bomb. (Forensic Architecture, 2019)

The Murder of Halit Yozgat — Simulated propagation of sound within a digital model of the internet café that was designed to mimic the exact dimensions and materials of the actual space. (Forensic Architecture and Anderson Acoustics, 2017)

Sea Watch vs Libyan Coast Guard (with Forensic Oceanography) — An image projected onto a 3D model in order reconstruct the complicated scene of search-and-rescue operations by the Libyan Coastguard and NGO vessels on 6 November 2017. (Forensic Oceanography and Forensic Architecture, 2018)

Model Zoo — This rendered image of an armoured vehicle textured with random patterns is an ‘extreme object’. Machine learning classifiers that use rendered images of 3D models or “synthetic data” are known to improve when they are trained using extreme variations of the modelled object. (Forensic Architecture, 2020)

Airstrikes on M2 Hospital — There were a number of CCTV cameras in M2 Hospital that were continuously on, capturing every strike. Forensic Architecture located each camera and its orientation in the building in order to integrate footage from the CCTV cameras, handheld videos, and photographs within virtual space. (Forensic Architecture, 2017)

Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests — Selecting multiple filters lets a user compare violations across time and space. (Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat, 2020)

The Seizure of the Iuventa (with Forensic Oceanography) — By mapping the sky to the inside of a sphere, we track the motion of a mounted camera and match the drifting movements of the vessels in the scene. (Forensic Oceanography and Forensic Architecture, 2018)

Herbicidal Warfare in Gaza — A leaf from a local chard plant showing signs of possible herbicide damage after being sprayed in East Gaza. (Image: Shourideh C. Molavi)

The Beating of Faisal al-Natsheh — Superimposition of the models from the three witnesses we interviewed as they describe a convoy of soldiers escorting arrested Palestinian civilians to a militarised checkpoint in Hebron. (Forensic Architecture/Breaking the Silence, 2020)

A still image from the Conquer and Divide platform. (Forensic Architecture / B’Tselem)

Tear Gas in Plaza de la Dignidad — ‘Identifying clouds of tear gas’ The automated system helps identify the exact time and location of visible CS clouds. Analysis of teargas in Plaza de la Dignidad based on footage from Galería CIMA. (Forensic Architecture, 2020)

Chemical Attacks in Al Lataminah — Four debris fragments collected from Al Lataminah are turned into three-dimensional models, and recomposed inside our model of the M4000 bomb. (Forensic Architecture, 2019)

The Murder of Halit Yozgat — Simulated propagation of sound within a digital model of the internet café that was designed to mimic the exact dimensions and materials of the actual space. (Forensic Architecture and Anderson Acoustics, 2017)