Event overview
Evidential Images
Arguments, or the rhetorical construction of truth about historical events, have always lain at the heart of legal trials. In this sense, it is not bare facts in themselves but how they can be assembled into a coherent and convincing narrative that provides the foundation for law’s findings on the truth. However, through the course of the twentieth century, the materials upon which arguments could be built have radically altered. This presentation sets out to explore mediated evidence, the role of scientific expertise, and the ways in which they combine to create new legal assemblages. More specifically, it considers how visual media, especially videos and photographs, are increasingly engaged in the construction of the arguments that legal practitioners deploy and that courts are called upon to adjudicate. As visual images proliferate in courts, visual rhetoric and visual argumentation unfold alongside the traditional rhetoric of words alone. This broadening of the rhetorical spectrum within legal practice calls for new forms of expertise based on an expanded capacity to decode, in order to meaningfully examine visual evidence and its visual advocacy as aesthetic agents of truth production.
Bio:
Susan Schuppli is an artist and researcher based in the UK, whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disasters. Current work explores the ways in which toxic ecologies from nuclear accidents and oil spills to the dark snow of the arctic are producing an “extreme image” archive of material wrongs. Creative projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US. Recent projects include Trace Evidence, a video trilogy commissioned by Arts Catalyst UK & Bildmuseet, Sweden and Atmospheric Feedback Loops, a Vertical Cinema commission for Sonic Acts, Amsterdam. Forthcoming exhibitions include Ural Biennale, Bonniers Kunsthall, Stockholm, Artspace, Auckland, and SculptureCenter, Queens. She has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of the forthcoming book, Material Witness (MIT Press). Schuppli is Reader and Acting Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and was previously Senior Research Fellow on the Forensic Architecture project. In 2016 she received the ICP Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research.
Susan Schuppli's lecture is part of the Goldsmiths MFA Post-Graduate talks series.
Series 1.2: The Truth, Again.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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27 Nov 2017 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
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