Art and Crime: what is the role of political art?

In 2018, the collective Forensic Architecture was shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize. Their exhibition, 'The Long Duration of a Split Second', in the Tate Britain reconstructed the moment of a contested murder that took place in the Negev Desert the year before. Elsewhere the adaption of the gallery as a place of investigations reveals that the line between the studio and the laboratory has collapsed. Can political art ever be just an aesthetic project? What is the role of art in the process of investigations?

Using examples from Wikileaks, BellingCat, open source research, and AI analysis, the authors explore how power reveals and hides the truth, and explain why this is a question of aesthetics. In this case, aesthetics is about making sense in both meanings of the term: firstly, how we perceive the world; secondly, how we make sense of things. Investigative Aesthetics combines the role of artist and the investigator as political struggles today require both the demolition and the establishment of facts. This reshapes our ability to organise artistic and political action, and allows us to challenge power in new ways.

Matthew Fuller is an author and Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of Media and Communications, at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is known for his writings in media theory, software studies, critical theory and cultural studies.He is the author of Media Ecologies, and with Andrew Goffey, Evil Media.

Eyal Weizman directs the Centre for Research Architecture and the international investigative project, Forensic Architecture. He is the author of Hollow Land, The Least of All Possible Evils, and Forensic Architecture. After a hugely acclaimed exhibition at the ICA, Forensic Architecture was shortlisted for the 2018 Turner Prize. They have exhibited around the world, and in 2019, their work was included in the Whitney Biennial.