Disrupted Dwelling: Forensic Aesthetics and the Visibility of Violence

Abstract

The aim of the present text is to offer an interpretation of Eyal Weizman’s_concept of forensic aesthetics, demonstrating how this approach reveals the ways in which the aesthetic perception of violence, trauma, and decomposition of human dwelling can be transformed in the current digital optical war regime. Forensic aesthetics tries to grasp a_forensic sensibility as both an aesthetic and political practice, requiring individuals to become sensitive to violence and be able to comprehend and experience the affects of disintegration, trauma, and despair that are characteristic of the experience of the survivor. The environment, dwelling, and architecture are not only inert observers, but rather have become material witnesses of crimes, violence, and destruction of various dwellings inhabited by various species. The application of digital technologies in forensic aesthetics carries a strong ethical appeal to avoid injustice. Traces and fragments of evidence, as well as multiple videos and images, are synchronized and recomposed within digital architectural environments and dwellings, as an optical and interpretative tool that shapes a new type of aesthetics.