Panel: Eyal Weizman (Goldsmiths), Maja Petrović-Šteger (University of Cambridge), and Stewart Motha (Birkbeck)

Forensics conjures the sense of a truth established by science in the service of the law. But the origin of ‘forensic’ in the Latinforensis – ‘pertaining to the forum’ – is more wide-ranging. Forensis invokes a site of negotiation between humans, technologies, and material things. This wider meaning opens the possibility of a forensic future where science and technology become the basis for holding states to account for mass violence and systematic neglect. Eyal Weizman and Maja Petrović-Šteger explore how new technologies, satellite imaging, landscapes, DNA, bones and human remains have emerged as material objects that ‘speak and testify’ to state crimes and mass violence. Their account of forensic architecture and the testimony of material objects point to the emergence of new forms of public truth.

Room B34, Malet Street, Birkbeck. Starts at 6.30pm