FORENSIC ANALYSIS

Forensic architecture collaborates with communities affected by social and political violence, alongside other NGOs, human rights groups, activists and media organisations. The data produced from their investigations have helped in raising awareness on colonialism, climate change, racism, and a number of legal crime cases at state and national levels.

Eyal Weizman, a british Israeli architect, is the director and founder of Forensic architecture. When Eyal graduated from architecture school in London, he moved back to Israel to continue his architecture career. He was invited by the Israel Association of United Architects to produce an exhibition that would represent the best of Israeli Architecture. Thorough analysis of the West Bank revealed that most of the architecture was used to suppress human rights and displace Palestinians from their homes and land. And this exactly what Eyal wanted to exhibit - the truth. The censoring of the exhibition was the starting point of his recognition, all around the world.

Forensic Architecture are not only architects, but also have a team of scholars, filmmakers, designers, lawyers, scientists, archaeologists, and psychologists, And as a collective they take on the roles of an architect by combining their spatial and engineering skills, their ability to gather data, their detective skills, and storytelling skills, to produce their investigations.

Architecture VS Forensics

Forensic Architecture’s work in the world of forensics has raised controversy on the need for an architect to determine evidence. Forensic Architecture’s investigations have been at timeschallenged, suspended and objected. With some attorneys claiming architects didn’t have the right expertise to understand conflict - or - their work had no precedental reference to be accepted as evidence in court.

However, architects are one of the most skilled experts in understanding issues or conflict within people - because they occur within the built form that they design for. Architects have the tools and resources that help unpack these state and global issues all around the world.

Architects enforce an imperative to shift attention from the figure (the individual or action) to the ground (the urban fabric or landscape). The architect is a median between the field (where violence occurs) and the forensic (labarotory analysis), because they understand both the built environment and it’s occupiers to unpack the hidden story.

The uncovered yellow tape demonstrate the countries in which Forensic Architecture has investigated cases in. The analysis illustrated a great amount of issues occuring in Europe, Asia and Africa, which inevitably occur due to population density, economic and cultural factors.

Most of their projects being in the middle east draws links to the collonial arrangements of history that - to this day - still occur. Whilst the events in the United States are focused on the racial inequalities experienced by the black people.

These investigations have seen relations between same or related violences occuring in different areas of the world. For example, pushbacks were identified on the Evros/Meric River - in a number of cases, as well as in Melilla/Spain. By identifying patterns, awareness can be raised on preventing such events and resources could be shared amongst communities.

Different algorithms can establish correlations, clusters, and associations between incidents that otherwise woud have remained invisible. The analysis can also help in idetnifying modes and frequencies of attack, target groups and type of destruction/ violence.

This information then becomes useful in placing measures around the risk factors of potential or predicted violences.

There are still much more violence and events that need to be unpacked occuring in other countries covered by the yellow tape. Forensic Architecture may not have the resources to work in those countries - or - a political power is wanting to keep events or violences hidden.

There is a need for more grants or organisations to commission investigations around the issues happening locally and globally. Transcending this, there needs to be a shift from numbing percpetions of pain felt by others, and focus on sensing, detecting, processing and presenting the facts of the pain.