VR for justice.
Virtual Reality and other immersive technologies can be successfully used to support communities and fight for better life and for equality for marginalized groups.
During the lecture we talked about VR being used in education, medicine, but also for social justice.
Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency investigating human rights violations committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations1, in order to support a fight for social justice. The organization includes a multi-disciplinary team of specialists using edge-cutting solutions, including VR and AR, in aid of understanding the events they recreate and analyze. Technologies used by the FA engage with spatial elements and architecture so 3d models can be built and incorporated in the investigation. Using Virtual Reality can provide a sense of being present at the widely understood crime scene and lead to a better understanding of people involved in it. FA works hard to investigate and gather solid evidence, to then make stimulations and create models and scenes of what has happened, to find justice for those who were often let down by the (justice) system.
FA works globally and investigates various cases of disasters, and human rights violations. One of the affairs FA was commissioned for, was to find out and present the truth about the killing of Mark Duggan2, controversially shot dead by the London Metropolitan Police in 2011. VR was used in the process to understand and show what police officers in the scene could and could not have seen in terms of noticing the alleged gun the victim was holding.
This is a contentious case, as even though, based on evidence and independent investigations, killing Mark Duggan was brought to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) as illegitimate, the Met (Metropolitan Police) still seem to protect their own people instead of admitting a mistake.
At the same time, it is a ground for future use of VR for fairness and social justice.
Implementing VR and AR to the trials and investigations is another, next to the VR police training, way of taking advantage of immersive technologies and using them in the broadly understood justice system. At the same time, what is highlighted by Eyal Weizman, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths and AF’s director, it is important not to trivialize investigated issues.
Confronting governments, agencies, bullies through a wide range of aesthetic tools, including architecture, film, 3d modelling, VR and AR has also another, additional role; to show communities that the art is not only to fictionalize3 and to depict the author’s vision of the world, but it also is for justice.
1 Forensic Architecture. Agency. Available at https://forensic-architecture.org/about/agency accessed 6.11.2021.
2 The Killing of Mark Duggan. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_xzmOpGypY accessed on 6.11.2021.
3 Forensic Architecture. Turner Prize Nominee 2018. TateShots. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2018/forensic-architecture accessed 6.11.2021.