SITU Research produced a series of video analyses and maps for Sow, et al. v. City of New York, et al., a class action civil rights lawsuit against the City of New York, documenting the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) misconduct at various protests during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. The violations of a wide range of constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, press, and assembly, were captured on video in a variety of formats including camera phones of protesters, body cameras worn by police officers, aerial surveillance imagery and CCTV footage.
SITU Research produced a series of video analyses and maps for Sow, et al. v. City of New York, et al., a class action civil rights lawsuit against the City of New York, documenting the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) misconduct at various protests during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. The violations of a wide range of constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, press, and assembly, were captured on video in a variety of formats including camera phones of protesters, body cameras worn by police officers, aerial surveillance imagery and CCTV footage.
The picture of Baqytali Nur is part of a series of photographs of former detainees of the detention camps in Xinjiang, China and was taken in Almaty, Kazakhstan in January 2020. It is exhibited alongside the investigation into Xinjiang’s network of detention camps by Alison Killing, Megha Rajagopalan, and Christo Buschek for BuzzFeed News.
Ten eyewitnesses of the Russian airstrike on Mariupol’s Drama Theater on March 16, 2022 were invited to participate in interview sessions using the “situated testimony” technique developed by the CST’s partnering organization, Forensic Architecture. This technique involves using 3D models of scenes and environments in which traumatic events occurred to aid in the process of interviewing and collecting testimony from witnesses.
Ten eyewitnesses of the Russian airstrike on Mariupol’s Drama Theater on March 16, 2022 were invited to participate in interview sessions using the “situated testimony” technique developed by the CST’s partnering organization, Forensic Architecture. This technique involves using 3D models of scenes and environments in which traumatic events occurred to aid in the process of interviewing and collecting testimony from witnesses.
A 3D site model of the Pie de la Cuesta Air Force base in Guerrero, Mexico was reconstructed from archival materials, high-fidelity declassified spy satellite imagery, and declassified findings from a post hoc military investigation on the government’s alleged crimes during the so-called Dirty War period (1960s—1980s). SITU Research teamed up with the Mexico-based human rights organization Centro Prodh to analyze and reconstruct the “Death Flights.”
VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
Between Advocacy, Journalism, and Law
Human rights violations are more present in the public domain than ever before, not least due to the ubiquity of image sources: smartphones, satellites, surveillance equipment, and police body cameras produce large volumes of audiovisual material, recording violent and repressive incidents, as well as persistent injustices. Newsrooms, prosecutor’s offices, and human rights organizations alike have become increasingly concerned with processing and contextualizing this stream of data, both in the context of immediate, breaking news as well as through longer-term reporting and accountability mechanisms. In order to provide comprehensive presentations, those working in the field of visual investigation utilize a range of tools to connect video and image content with people, places, and events. Interdisciplinary teams that can include architects, filmmakers and computer scientists, among others, mobilize a diverse constellation of tools and methods to analyze violations across time and space. From applying geo-spatial analysis and 3D modeling to the rapidly developing fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence, their aim is to uncover and present the facts and their contexts rigorously, transparently, and as independently as possible. In the face of a rapidly evolving landscape of contested events and misinformation, visual investigation has undergone accelerated development—a reality that presents opportunities and challenges in equal measure.
The Architekturmuseum der TUM is dedicating its exhibition to the emergent field of visual investigation to show, through a series of seven case studies, how architecture operates between advocacy, journalism, and the law in the pursuit of justice and accountability. Featured investigations will dive into issues including detention camps in the Xinjiang region of China, the suppression of dissent by police in the United States, the killing of Colombian journalist Abelardo Liz, the Russian airstrike on Mariupol’s Drama Theatre, remote sensing and land dispossession in the West Bank, enforced disappearances during Mexico’s “Dirty War,” and the consequences of the climate crisis for Pacific Island states.
Collaborators: Alison Killing, London; Bellingcat, Amsterdam; The Center for Spatial Technologies (CST), Kyiv and Berlin; and SITU Research, New York City
Curators: Lisa Luksch, Andres Lepik
Exhibition design: CPWH, Munich
Graphic design: PARAT.cc, Munich
Publication
Reading Visual Investigations: Between Advocacy, Journalism, and Law
Edited by Lisa Luksch and Andres Lepik
To the catalogueVernissage
