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Forensic architecture LINDSAY BREMNER The Least of all Possible Evils. Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza, Eyal Weizman, Verso, £16.99
At the heart of Eyal Weizman's new book is an engagement with the problem of violence, in particular oí state violence and the calculations that manage it in the contemporary world. Weizman argues that humanitarianism, human rights and international humanitarian law have become crucial technologies in calculating what constitutes a just or balanced war, and that forensic analysis is frequently at the forefront of this necro-economy. This corresponds with the shift of emphasis in the 1990s from human testimony to objects of material evidence in the investigation of war crimes and, as conflict became increasingly urbanised, representations of the built environment, fragments of buildings, satellite imagery of destroyed buildings etc being used as evidence in courts of law. This resulted in what Wei/man calls forensic architecture: existing at the intersection of architecture, history and the laws of war, forensic architecture is both an analytical method for reconstructing scenes of violence as they are inscribed in spatial artefacts and the practice of interpreting and deliberating over them in legally constituted forums.*
The book begins with an account of the 1755 natural disasters (earthquake, tidal waves etc) that wreaked havoc on both sides of the Atlantic, as told in Voltaire's Candide. The tale's protagonists, Candide and Pangloss set out on a sea voyage, but are shipwrecked and washed ashore in Lisbon, only to be subjected to a devastating earthquake....