Eyal Weizman
Goldsmiths, University of London, Visual Cultures, Faculty Member
- Eyal Weizman is an architect, Professor of Spatial & Visual Cultures and director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Since 2011 he also directs the European Research Council (ERC) funded project, Forensic Architecture. The exhibition/book FORENSIS is a product of this research project. In 2014 he was nominated Glo... moreEyal Weizman is an architect, Professor of Spatial & Visual Cultures and director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Since 2011 he also directs the European Research Council (ERC) funded project, Forensic Architecture. The exhibition/book FORENSIS is a product of this research project. In 2014 he was nominated Global Scholar at Princeton University. He is a founding member of the architectural collective DAAR in Beit Sahour/Palestine with which he has published Architecture after Revolution (Sternberg press, 2013). Weizman has been a Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and has also taught at the Bartlett (UCL) in London, at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and was a Professeur invité at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He lectured, curated and organised conferences in many institutions worldwide. His other books include Mengele's Skull (with Thomas Keenan at Sternberg Press 2012), Forensic Architecture (dOCUMENTA13 notebook, 2012), The Least of all Possible Evils (Nottetempo 2009, Verso 2011), Hollow Land (Verso, 2007), the co-edited A Civilian Occupation (Verso, 2003), the series Territories 1,2 and 3, Yellow Rhythms and many articles in journals, magazines and edited books. He has realized a number of architectural and design commissions including the Ashdod Museum of Arts, set design for Electra (with Rafi Segal), the installation Page in Berlin (with Zvi Hecker and Micha Ullman), and a permanent folly (titled: The Roundabout Revolution) for Gwangju, South Korea amongst other projects. Weizman is a regular contributor and an editorial board member for several journals and magazines including Grey Room, Humanity, Inflexions, Political Concepts, and Cabinet where he is an editor at large and has also edited a special issue on forensics (issue 43, 2011). He has worked with a variety of NGOs world wide and was member of B'Tselem (the largest Israeli human rights organization) board of directors. He is currently on the advisory boards of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, the Human Rights Project at Bard in NY, as a jury member for architecture at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and of other academic and cultural institutions. Weizman is the recipient of the James Stirling Memorial Lecture Prize for 2006-2007, a co-recipient of the 2010 Prince Claus Prize for Architecture (with Sandy Hilal and Alessandro Petti for DAAR) and was invited to deliver many key note addresses and memorial lectures for Nelson Mandela (Bob Hawkes Prime Ministerial Centre, Adelaide), Edward Said (University of Warwick) Rusty Bernstein (University of The Witwatersrand), Paul Hirst (Birkbeck College), the Edward H. Benenson Lectures (Duke), and the Mansour Armaly (MESA) amongst others. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London and completed his PhD at the London Consortium/Birkbeck College.edit
Research Interests:
In this essay, I’d like to respond to Ariella Azoulay’s provocative argument on the nature of human rights and images—the way human rights are constituted in photography—by turning our attention to a slightly grimmer subject, that of the... more
In this essay, I’d like to respond to Ariella Azoulay’s provocative argument on the nature of human rights and images—the way human rights are constituted in photography—by turning our attention to a slightly grimmer subject, that of the dead, and the problem of their representation.
Forensics originated from the term "forensis" which is Latin for “pertaining to the forum.” The Roman forum was a multidimensional space of negotiation and truth-finding in which humans as well as objects participated in politics, law,... more
Forensics originated from the term "forensis" which is Latin for “pertaining to the forum.” The Roman forum was a multidimensional space of negotiation and truth-finding in which humans as well as objects participated in politics, law, and the economy. With the advent of modernity, forensics shifted to refer exclusively to the courts of law and to the use of medicine, and today as a science in service to the law. The present use of forensics, along with its popular representations have become increasingly central to the modes by which states police and govern their subjects.
By returning to forensis this book seeks to unlock forensics’ original potential as a political practice and reorient it. Inverting the direction of the forensic gaze it designates a field of action in which individuals and organizations detect and confront state violations.
The condition of forensis is one in which new technologies for mediating the “testimony” of material objects—bones, ruins, toxic substances, landscapes, and the contemporary medias in which they are captured and represented—are mobilized in order to engage with struggles for justice, systemic violence, and environmental transformations across the frontiers of contemporary conflict.
This book presents the work of the architects, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and theorists who participated directly in the “Forensic Architecture” project in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, as well as the work of associates and guests. It includes forensic investigations undertaken by the project and its collaborators aimed at producing new kinds of evidence for use by international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, NGOs, and the UN. It also brings together research and essays that situate contemporary forensic practices within broader political, historical, and aesthetic discourse.
By returning to forensis this book seeks to unlock forensics’ original potential as a political practice and reorient it. Inverting the direction of the forensic gaze it designates a field of action in which individuals and organizations detect and confront state violations.
The condition of forensis is one in which new technologies for mediating the “testimony” of material objects—bones, ruins, toxic substances, landscapes, and the contemporary medias in which they are captured and represented—are mobilized in order to engage with struggles for justice, systemic violence, and environmental transformations across the frontiers of contemporary conflict.
This book presents the work of the architects, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and theorists who participated directly in the “Forensic Architecture” project in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, as well as the work of associates and guests. It includes forensic investigations undertaken by the project and its collaborators aimed at producing new kinds of evidence for use by international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, NGOs, and the UN. It also brings together research and essays that situate contemporary forensic practices within broader political, historical, and aesthetic discourse.
Forensics originated from the term "forensis" which is Latin for “pertaining to the forum.” The Roman forum was a multidimensional space of negotiation and truth-finding in which humans as well as objects participated in politics, law,... more
Forensics originated from the term "forensis" which is Latin for “pertaining to the forum.” The Roman forum was a multidimensional space of negotiation and truth-finding in which humans as well as objects participated in politics, law, and the economy. With the advent of modernity, forensics shifted to refer exclusively to the courts of law and to the use of medicine, and today as a science in service to the law. The present use of forensics, along with its popular representations have become increasingly central to the modes by which states police and govern their subjects.
By returning to forensis this book seeks to unlock forensics’ original potential as a political practice and reorient it. Inverting the direction of the forensic gaze it designates a field of action in which individuals and organizations detect and confront state violations.
The condition of forensis is one in which new technologies for mediating the “testimony” of material objects—bones, ruins, toxic substances, landscapes, and the contemporary medias in which they are captured and represented—are mobilized in order to engage with struggles for justice, systemic violence, and environmental transformations across the frontiers of contemporary conflict.
This book presents the work of the architects, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and theorists who participated directly in the “Forensic Architecture” project in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, as well as the work of associates and guests. It includes forensic investigations undertaken by the project and its collaborators aimed at producing new kinds of evidence for use by international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, NGOs, and the UN. It also brings together research and essays that situate contemporary forensic practices within broader political, historical, and aesthetic discourse.
By returning to forensis this book seeks to unlock forensics’ original potential as a political practice and reorient it. Inverting the direction of the forensic gaze it designates a field of action in which individuals and organizations detect and confront state violations.
The condition of forensis is one in which new technologies for mediating the “testimony” of material objects—bones, ruins, toxic substances, landscapes, and the contemporary medias in which they are captured and represented—are mobilized in order to engage with struggles for justice, systemic violence, and environmental transformations across the frontiers of contemporary conflict.
This book presents the work of the architects, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and theorists who participated directly in the “Forensic Architecture” project in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, as well as the work of associates and guests. It includes forensic investigations undertaken by the project and its collaborators aimed at producing new kinds of evidence for use by international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, NGOs, and the UN. It also brings together research and essays that situate contemporary forensic practices within broader political, historical, and aesthetic discourse.