The course offers theoretical and practical reflections on the relations between the study of the space of architecture/built environments within the area of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Human Rights (HR). It deals with the evidentiary and epistemological role of architecture as an instrument to investigate legal controversies within their distinct spatial dimensions. In an age where warfare is mostly waged within urban settings, the role of space and architecture can be used as evidence within the different forums of international justice as well as a source of knowledge by which political events, processes and history can be reconstructed and analyzed.
Section 1 : introduction and syllabus
syllabus
FA1 X3 MIRANSHAH 21-10-2013 H264-15Mbs from Forensic Architecture on Vimeo.
Section 2 : THE EVENT
2.1 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), Lexicon
2.2 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), pp 9–21
Section 3 : EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONY
3.1 David Hodo, Forensic Anthropologists, Mass Graves, and International Law (Anthrojournal: 2011)
3.2 film: EAAF, Witness, Following Antigone: Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights Investigations
3.3 Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, Echographies of Television (Polity Press, 2002) Rodney King
3.4 Forensic Architecture, ed., Living Death Camps in Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014)
Section 4 : SPACE; EVIDENCE / TESTIMONY
4.1 Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture (New York: Zone Books, 2017), pp 13–21
4.2 film: Case Study no. 3 Miranshah: http://www.forensic-architecture.org/case/drone-strikes/#toggle-id-5
4.3 Thomas Keenan and Eyal Weizman, Mengele’s Skull (Sternberg Press/Portikus)
4.4 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), pp 149–156
4.5 film: Harun Farocki, Images of the World and Inscriptions of War (1989)
4.6 website: http://panorama.auschwitz.org
Section 5 : IMAGE AND RESOLUTION
5.1 Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture (New York: Zone Books, 2017), pp 22ff
5.3 film: Rosa Menkman, Beyond Resolution, https://vimeo.com/125070255
5.4 Rosa Menkman, various excerpts, undated
Section 6 : CASE STUDIES
6.1 Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture (New York: Zone Books, 2017), Ground Truth
6.2 Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture (New York: Zone Books, 2017), Rafah, pp 165–212
Section 7 : THE SPEECH OF THINGS
7.1 Bruno Latour, From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik (2005)
7.2 Leopold Lambert, The Speech of Things (The New Enquiry, 2014)
Section 8 : TRIAL AND JUSTICE
8.1 Shoshona Felman, The Juridical Unconscious (Harvard University Press: 2002), chapter 1+3
Section 9 : TRUTH
9.1 Jacques Derrida, Signature Event Context
9.2 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), pp 56–95
Section 10 : Citizen Forensics Workshop
9.1 Public Lab: https://publiclab.org
Section 11 : FORUM
11.1 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), pp 21–32
11.2 Forensic Architecture, ed., Forensis (Oberhausen: Sternberg Press, 2014), Assemblies
11.3 Okwui Enwezor, Documentary/Vérité (2004)
Section 12 : FORUM II
12.1 Weizman, The Least of all Possible Evils (London: Verso, 2011), chapters 1 + 3