VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
Between Advocacy, Journalism, and Law
Human rights violations are more visually present in the public domain than ever before. Smartphones, satellites, surveillance and police body cameras are frequently producing large volumes of audio-visual material that records violent and repressive incidents, as well as persistent injustice. The rise of data-driven sources has also engendered a significant shift from traditional verbal eyewitness testimony to visual evidence in journalistic, legal, and advocacy work—representing a fundamental change in the way evidence is interpreted and presented.
Newsrooms, prosecutor’s offices and large human rights organizations alike have been increasingly concerned with processing and contextualizing such data, both in the context of immediate, breaking news as well as in longer-term reporting and accountability mechanisms. In order to provide comprehensive presentation of contested events, those working in the field of “Visual Investigations” utilize a range of tools to connect video and image content with people, places and events. These dynamic teams include architects, filmmakers and software developers, who use spatial analysis and 3D modeling, for example, to uncover and visualize violence and destruction.
The Architekturmuseum der TUM is dedicating its planned exhibition to the emergent field of "Visual Investigations" and will use a series of case studies and research to show how the role of architecture operates between advocacy, journalism, and law in the pursuit of justice and accountability. We will critically examine both the demographic profile of the field, determining the focus of issues and conflicts investigated, and the subjectivity and debate surrounding the narratives formed by such analyses. Presentations include detention camps in the Xinjiang region of China, police violence in the USA and the consequences of the climate crisis for Pacific Island states.