Forensic Architecture Research Articles

Photography as clouds: Notes toward the possibility of spatial photography

Many recent visual and technological changes in photography are related to the fact that it is increasingly connected to space through computerization and digitization. Photographs no longer appear as framed 2D images, but rather resemble a cloud whose viewing and operating mode necessarily involve navigation. My purpose in this article is to think about photography’s ontological and epistemological status through its contemporary spatial uses. Using two projects by Forensic Architecture, I examine two methodologies of spatial photography – photogrammetric point clouds and the Image-Data Complex – and claim that, whereas with the emergence of the internet, digital photography has primarily been perceived as a networked image, today we should think of it in terms of clouds. Both projects rely on a posthuman multiplication of perspectives and a vertical conceptualization of photography as navigable space. Both also represent and demonstrate the medium’s contemporary political potential for documenting, creating evidence and organizing data. Finally, both challenge traditional definitions of photography and outline new alternatives for interrogating human rights violations.

A Territorialized Memory of Colombian Conflict

A review of Huellas de desaparición: Los casos de Urabá, Palacio de Justicia y territorio Nukak (Traces of Disappearance: The Cases of Urabá, Palace of Justice and Nukak Territory), an exhibition held in Bogotá, Colombia, at the Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia (MAMU), December 10 to July 18, 2021, and in Medellín, Colombia, at the Museo de Antioquia, September 15, 2022 to January 2, 2023; the exhibition was curated by Forensic Architecture and the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad la Convivencia y la No Repetición de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP). The exhibition used architectural tools to reconstruct three episodes of the Colombian armed conflict: the displacement of the Nukak Indigenous people, the dispossession of Campesino farmers to accommodate banana plantations for multinational companies, and the response of Colombian armed forces to the siege of Colombia’s Palace of Justice.

A Forensic Approach to Seeing Slow Violence in Death Alley

This paper takes, as provocation, Robert Nixon’s proposition that the effects of ecological instances of “slow violence”—that is, brutalities that manifest incrementally across time and space—elude visible registers, and, as a corollary, are rendered image-weak in the context of today’s saturated mediascape. Specifically, through drawing on burgeoning scholarship focusing on the representation of slow violence and its resistance, in conjunction with nascent theory on “mediated forensics” and “militant evidence,” this article positions the devastating manifestations of slow violence in relation to other forms of neocolonial brutality which, it is argued, are likewise systematically structured to impact marginalized communities whose perspectives are persistently underrepresented in the mainstream. Proceeding from this conviction, the representational challenges issued by Nixon over a decade ago are taken up afresh: Eyal Weizman’s calls to explore the rhetorical potentials of the forensic are addressed through an examination of how the emergence of new digital technologies of image production and distribution are reshaping the ways in which ecological activism is practiced in contexts of crises that adhere, at least on first sight, to Nixon’s definition of slow violence. Analysis is foregrounded in the case study of “Death Alley” (once known as “Cancer Alley”), an eighty-five-mile stretch of land which, snaking alongside the Mississippi River in Louisiana, is currently populated by the densest constellation of chemical facilities in the Western Hemisphere, leading it to become the subject of Forensic Architecture’s 2021 investigation Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana.

Migration and the Dystopian Imagination of European Border Regimes

Inward migration has long troubled the European political imagination. For example, an emphasis on fortification and low immigration was key to the civilisational fantasy of many early modern European literary Utopias. The dominant contemporary political framing of irregularised migration as a European problem thus leans on an imagined transnational ‘European civilisation’, concretised in the contemporary EU but with roots stretching back centuries. This article examines critical cultural treatments of legal and policy frameworks, grounded in a (supra-)nationalist civilisational myth, which now determine the treatment of irregularised migrants. Specifically, I examine three cultural texts (a novel, a film, and documentary artwork) produced in the years immediately preceding the development of the current Dublin III Regulation, which determines how and where asylum claims are processed in the EU. These three realist primary texts counter the official techno-scientific discourse of territorial integrity using science fictional narrative strategies, generic conventions, and tropes: the 2012 documentary artwork Liquid Traces: The Left to Die Boat Case by Forensic Architecture uses science fictional visualisations to directly confront the deadly effects of European bordering in the Mediterranean. Aki Kaurismäki’s film Le Havre (2011), shows how twentieth-century history haunts contemporary migration fears by spatialising multiple temporalities in the titular city. Finally, Chika Unigwe’s novel On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), explores the colonial dynamics of irregularised migration and the complexities of individual agency, producing a form of critical dystopian engagement with the social and political conditions of the present without being a generic dystopia. These three texts expose the dangers and violence of European bordering, and counter the science fictional civilisational fantasies of its policies. They share an emphasis on the need for solidarity, resistance, and, via encounters with the spectral presences of Europe’s past, they demand forms of historical justice which will break with contemporary dystopian conditions and the hard borders of the present.

Forensic Architecture and the Aesthetics of Post-Human Testimony

Forensic Architecture, a civilian-led open source investigative agency, synthesizes the disciplines of investigative journalism, fine art, legal studies, and forensics to redefine witnessing, testimony, evidence, and the necropolitical contours of the digital age. This article examines Forensic Architecture’s approach to the visualization of violence and the resulting displacement of the body as the primary site of forensic evidence and the living witness as the pinnacle of legal testimony. In this process, the agency produces post-human testimony, thus reconceptualizing the link between politics and aesthetics while questioning human agency. As a result, Forensic Architecture foregrounds materiality as an epistemic category, creating a post-human framework for understanding the vicissitudes of state violence. The agency also recalibrates evidential logic by transforming digitized phenomena into an assemblage and binding this to discursive forums. Thus, by examining different permutations of state violence both on the ground and in virtual space, the advent of Forensic Architecture marks a new era in which post-human testimony shifts away from compassionate identification on the part of the viewer with the wounded body and instead reveals infrastructures of domination as a means to recompose and alter the visualization of political conflicts, and by extension, our perception of human life and death.

A REVIEW OF ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF ARCHI-PRENEURSHIP PRACTICE IN NIGERIA

This article appraises issues and opportunities of architectural entrepreneurship (archi-preneurship) practice in Nigeria. It recognises the relevance of entrepreneurial orientation in the architectural syllabus as a consequence of the emerging issues facing the career path and derived from students' long-term educational needs to prepare them for a successful job in a competitive global economy. Hence, industrialisation, job creation, and poverty alleviation processes are accentuated by entrepreneurship. To find out these issues and opportunities of archi-preneurship, a systematic review approach was adopted to source current relevant data from Academia, Elsevier, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, MDPI, and ResearchGate databases for this study, which focused on programmes relating to the architecture profession that can help entrepreneurs grow and make conclusions. The concepts of entrepreneurship, architecture, and technology were explored. Five specialisation areas that would potentially facilitate entrepreneurial prospects in Nigeria were identified, and the challenges they present to architects. These components include architecture consultation; research and application of building information modeling (BIM) technologies; property development and construction, retrofitting and energy efficiency; sustainable building material science; and urban design. Some available skills architecture graduates could engage in include landscaping, interior design, graphics and animation, project management, architecture blogging, forensic architecture, and building pathology among others. The study outlines different aspects that architects should consider to de-emphasise the hunt for non-existent office employment and embrace self-occupation. Also, more entrepreneurial training skills and development programmes should be established, as well as a reassessment of the present syllabi to instill business knowledge at all stages of architecture education.

A blockchain-based cloud forensics architecture for privacy leakage prediction with cloud

Digital forensics has intelligently evolved into cloud forensics, which protects against cybercrime. However, centralized evidence gathering and maintenance reduces the credibility of digital evidence. This article suggests a unique digital forensic architecture for the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud combining rapidly expanding Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain technologies to address this serious issue. Blockchain helps to store the gathered evidence, which means it is shared among many peers in the proposed forensic architecture. The Secure-Ring-Verification-based Authentication (SRVA) technique is recommended to ensure security from suspicious accounts. The Harmony Search Optimization (HSO) technique helps to produce secret keys that strengthen the cloud environment. Depending on their level of sensitivity, all information is encrypted and kept on a cloud server. Sensitive Aware Deep Elliptic Curve Cryptography (SAD-ECC) method was used for encryption. In the cloud, a piece of information is saved, and the SDN manager creates the blocks and stores the history of that piece of data as metadata. Utilizing Secure Hashing Algorithm-3 (SHA-3), a Merkle Hash Tree is constructed for each block. The proposed technology uses Fuzzy-based Smart Contracts (FSCs) to enable clients to trail their data. At last, evidence analysis is made possible by creating a Logical-Graph of Evidence (LGoE) using data collected through Blockchain. The network simulator-3.26 and java (for cloud and Blockchain) environment are used for experiments. A thorough investigation shows that the suggested forensic architecture exhibits favorable response, evidence insertion, and verification times.

An evolutionary algorithmic framework cloud based evidence collection architecture

Forensic in cloud computing is an advancement of evolutionary modern forensic science that protects against cyber criminals. Single centralize point compilation and storage of data, however, overcome the authenticity of digital evidence. In order to address this serious issue, this article suggests a evolutionary modern algorithm automated forensic platform leveraging infrastructure as a cloud service (IaaS) based on Blockchain concept. This proposed forensic structural design, evidence collection of evidence and stored on a blockchain which is circulated around several peer blocks. Secure Block Verification Mechanism (SBVM) is proposed to Safeguarding the device from unauthorised users. Using the Backtracking Search Optimization Algorithm search optimization algorithm for strengthening of the cloud environment, secret keys are optimally generated. On the bases of level of confidentiality, all data is stored and encrypted at cloud authentication server. Confidentiality-based Algebraically Homomorphic Cryptosystems learning is presented with a fast-forwarding algorithm for encryption. A block in the SDN controller is created for every data and information is stored in the cloud service provider and the history is recorded as metadata data about data. A hash based tree is constructed in each block by Secure Hash Algorithm version - 3 of 512 bits. By implementing graph theory-based graph neural networks in Smart Contracts, our framework enables users to track their data (GNNSC). Finally, the construction of a evidence graph using blockchain data enables evidence analysis. Experiments was carried out in a Python programming and blockchain integrated cloud environment with network simulator-3.30 (for Software Defined Network). As part of result our newly designed forensic architecture using blochchain (FAuB) good results in terms of evidence response time, insertion times of cloud evidence, verification time of evidence, computational overhead of evidence, hashes calculation time, keys generations times of evidence, evidence encryption time, evidence decryptions time, and total overall change rate of evidence, according to a comprehensive comparative study.

The Hanau massacre and state (in)action: a dossier

Based on official and unofficial reports into the 2020 massacre at Hanau of nine people in a racist attack by a rightwing German extremist, the article reveals how state agencies fail to acknowledge the danger of the extreme Right in Germany, and also manage to exonerate the police and other agencies over preventing attacks, investigating the circumstances fully and protecting victims – who can themselves be treated as part of the problem. The result is that survivors and families of the deceased still feel that they have been failed. This forensic dissection of the aftermath of the killings draws on evidence presented by NSU-Watch, Initiative 19 February, Forensic Architecture and the official investigation carried out by the Hessen regional parliament.

Double Agents

Double Agents

How to witness a drone strike

Witnessing is crucial to public engagement with war, but the remote violence of drones presents distinct challenges: its victims are largely invisible to Western publics; operations are cloaked in secrecy; and promises of precision targeting, accurate surveillance, and legal monitoring obscure the brutalities of the system. With so many barriers to witnessing, remote warfare tends to remain on the periphery of political debate and has not occasioned widespread resistance. Yet the means for witnessing drone warfare exist; the question is how they might be leveraged to make remote war more accessible and contestable. This article analyses the high-profile drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul on 29 August 2021 to consider the limits and possibilities of witnessing drone strikes, alongside the database of conflict monitor Airwars and the aesthetic practice of the research agency Forensic Architecture. It argues that witnessing drone strikes requires assembling new conceptual techniques with long-standing practices of media witnessing and human rights testimony. It is not a manual or primer but rather maps four critical, analytical, and ethico-political trajectories demanded by the problem of how to witness a drone strike: lived experiences, violent mediations, infrastructural scales, and aesthetics.

Spatial Anatomy of Crime and Punishment from Forensic Architecture to Prison Architecture

Spatial Anatomy of Crime and Punishment from Forensic Architecture to Prison Architecture

Hiding in Plain Sight: Minoritarian Approaches to Espionage, Forensic Architecture, and In_Visible Co-Producers

Hiding in Plain Sight: Minoritarian Approaches to Espionage, Forensic Architecture, and In_Visible Co-Producers

Forensic Architecture in the Theatre and the Gallery: A Reflection on Counterhegemonic Potentials and Pitfalls of Art Institutions

This article examines the status of counterhegemonic knowledge in art institutions – such as the theatre and the gallery – by analysing Forensic Architecture's investigation into the murder of Halit Yozgat in Germany. We argue for paying close attention to claims about art institutions’ inherent counterhegemonic potential. As evidence, we present a critical experiential account of our visit to Forensic Architecture's gallery exhibition Counter Investigation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Following this, we discuss how the investigation was presented at the civic tribunal Tribunal NSU-Komplex auflösen, whose organizers took over and reassembled the municipal theatre Schauspiel Köln in Germany (2017). Drawing on an expert interview, we explore how the tribunal actively positioned itself against the potentially violent structure of the theatre space. Ultimately, our discussion considers the requirements for supportive and effective political alliances by art institutions and thus contributes to the debate in performance studies on institutional critique.

Research on IoT Forensics System Based on Blockchain Technology

In recent years, mobile edge computing (MEC) has become a research hotspot in academia. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an excellent way to build the infrastructure required for a MEC environment. Its rich digital tracking repository can provide insights into people's daily activities at home and elsewhere. Meanwhile, due to the open connectivity of the Internet of things devices, they can easily become the target of network attacks and be used by criminals as criminal tools. As a result, civil and criminal cases have increased year by year. This article conducts in-depth research on IoT forensics. By comparing its difference with traditional digital forensics (DF), the definition of IoT forensics is given. We have systematically sorted out the research results since the concept of IoT forensics was proposed in 2013 and proposed a generalized IoT forensics model. By studying blockchain technology and introducing it into the IoT forensics framework, a blockchain-based IoT forensics architecture is further proposed. Further, an alliance chain IoT forensics system is proposed. From the perspective of the data provider and the data visitor, the process of evidence storage and forensics of the IoT system is discussed. Finally, taking Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) forensics as an example, we give an experiment of IoT forensics analysis.

Introduction toVisual Arts ResearchSpecial Issue, Body Cam: The Visual Regimes of Policing

Introduction to<i>Visual Arts Research</i>Special Issue, Body Cam: The Visual Regimes of Policing

Mediated forensics and militant evidence: rethinking the camera as weapon

This article focuses on new media technologies and practices that are reshaping how human rights media activism is practiced, disseminated and received. Through an examination of two works by the research agency Forensic Architecture, we examine how these new technologies and practices aim to reframe and deploy forms of raw media evidence in human rights struggles and broader modes of political activism. We also consider how these nascent forms of activist media practice are indebted to the broader legacies of radical documentary practice, particularly through the theoretical lineage of the “camera as weapon.” The new technological and aesthetic strategies being developed and utilized by these groups are radically reshaping investigatory methodologies and collaborative practices across contemporary human rights, documentary, and new media practice. Ultimately, within these new ecologies of media practice, raw forms of media evidence are reframed and redeployed; entering into larger assemblages and ecologies to examine – and concomitantly resist – formations of political power and state violence. This is a practice that we term “mediated forensics.”

Non-scientific science and non-artistic art: ‘Other’ knowledges in the political practice of Forensic Architecture

How do the disciplinary boundaries of arts education shape art’s political horizons? Sixty-five years on from CP Snow’s controversial lecture The Two Cultures, both his protagonists (on one side the arts and humanities, on the other the sciences, management, finance) have claimed significant epistemological, political and practical ground. The distance that separates them, however, appears greater than ever. Art often stands in opposition to the hegemonic tendencies of positivist forms of knowledge, dismissing them as incompatible with its political goals. Given the formal disciplinary setting of art education, exacerbated in the competitive modern academy, I suggest that such restrictions to art’s epistemological and practical horizons are, in fact, politically counterproductive. I propose that by rejecting an array of knowledges – particularly those based on ideals such as rationalism, evidence and epistemological certainty – as a priori incompatible with artistic practice, artistic education may be doing a considerable disservice to the political and social interventions of art that are shaped by it. To suggest that art could tactically engage with alternative forms of knowledge to expand the political field, I propose artist group Forensic Architecture as an example of a practice that circumvents traditional disciplinary limitations to, in Snow’s parlance, become a bona fide culture characterized by political credibility, albeit at the expense of limiting art’s epistemic influence in the process.

Optical Tactics for Spatial Justice in the Works of Forensic Architecture and Hito Steyerl

Optical Tactics for Spatial Justice in the Works of Forensic Architecture and Hito Steyerl

Design Tools for Alternative Narratives

Three stories narrate professional and design practices that expand the Galaxy of Design, testifying to comprehensive experimental approaches, from the products produced, to the languages and techniques employed, to the themes and meanings. A studio, a scholarly research agency and a professional, who further shift and shred the boundaries of the discipline. The first is Superflux, which takes us to an experimental and speculative dimension, working on multimedia narratives in which the artifact becomes a programmatic, post-tech narrative pretext, representative of a consistently decentralized vision of man in the Planet. Forensic Architecture, which using digital technologies to analyze the built environment, places design as a methodological approach at the service of investigations of human rights violations. Finally Thomas Thwaites, for whom the project (which can be performance, device, installation or film) is always about finding answers to fundamental questions about our relationship with time, technology and nature.