Forensic Architecture: Open Verification

我们这个时代的一个决定性特征是，对支撑“事实”的传统权威--政府专家、大学、媒体和司法机构--的持续攻击。此外，社交媒体已经成为国家行为者、交战者和“反事实社区”传播怀疑和构建替代现实的场所。在这场技术-政治-认知危机中，围绕侵犯人权和环境权利的事实本身已经成为战场。常见的反应是支持传统的事实权威守护者；FAOV寻求提供另一种选择。该项目从法医建筑的开创性工作出发，将开发一种新的调查实践模式，我们称之为“公开核实”。法医建筑于十年前由国际刑事法院创建，目的是使用建筑工具和技术提供决定性证据，对抗法院、媒体和文化场所的侵犯人权行为。FAOV将通过与前线社区以及分散的专家和调查人员网络的合作，使证据的开发和部署社会化。它假定，如果更多和更广泛的各方参与调查的产生，调查的质量和对调查产生的事实的信任都将得到加强。每个新案件都将从互补和不同观点的相互作用以及不同形式的知识的整合中编织出一个新的实践社区。FAOV将参与现实世界的人权案件，在四个相关领域对抗民族主义“否定主义”：警察对种族主义社区的暴力、欧洲边境的侵犯人权行为、企业对环境的破坏和殖民遗产。每一次调查也是对新的社会、技术和政治生活罪行进行批判性反思的起点，将在书籍、展览、纪录片和公共节目中公布。

A defining characteristic of our era is a sustained attack against the traditional authorities that underpins 'facts': government experts,universities, media and the judiciary. Furthermore, social media has become a place where state actors, belligerents, and'counterfactual communities' spread doubt and construct alternative realities. Within this technological-political-epistemic crisis, factsaround human and environmental rights violations have themselves become battlefields.A common response is to buttress the traditional custodians of factual authority; FAOV seeks to offer an alternative. Departing fromthe ground-breaking work of Forensic Architecture-founded by the PI a decade ago to use architectural tools and technologies toprovide decisive evidence confronting human rights violations in courts, media and cultural venues-this project will develop a newmode of investigative practice that we call 'open verification'. FAOV will socialise the development and deployment of evidencethrough collaboration with frontline communities and diffused networks of specialists and investigators. It posits that both thequality of investigations and the trust in the facts they produce will be augmented if a greater number and a wider diversity of partiesis involved in their production. With each new case, a new community of practice will be woven from the interaction ofcomplementary and divergent viewpoints, and the integration of different forms of knowledge.FAOV will engage in real-world human rights casework, confronting nationalist "denialism" across four related domains: policeviolence against racialised communities, human rights violations at Europe's borders, environmental destruction by corporations, andcolonial legacy. Each investigation is also a starting point for critical reflections on the new social, technological, and political life offacts, to be made public in books, exhibitions, documentary films and public programmes.