This seminar on ‘operative models’ takes Forensic Architecture’s use of models – theoretical, computational and architectural – as an opportunity to interrogate the practice of modelling itself. Operative models are simultaneously material constructs and thought experiments, necessary to test, simulate, predict and present the ways in which particular incidents or larger-scale patterns of movement or interaction have unfolded, or could unfold in the future. What are the multiple relations between models and their depicted realities? Do some models operate beyond their descriptive power, and influence the reality that they are purportedly merely designed to represent or predict? How does this form of representation shift from the analytical to the operative? How are models activated to gain agency in different forums?

Members of Forensic Architecture will introduce the concept of Operative Models, in relation to the following investigations: Killing in Umm al-Hiran, The Murder of Halit Yozgat, and Destruction and Return in al-Araqib.

Invited participants – including legal scholar Brenna Bhandar, media theorist Matt Fuller, environmental researcher and practitioner Jennifer Gabrys, and architect and urbanist John Palmesino – will respond to the investigations and the concepts raised.

Following the seminar members of Forensic Architecture will lead a practice-based workshop on ‘forensic modelling’, covering techniques such as ‘reenactment’, ‘photogrammetry’, ‘real scale simulation’, and ‘remote sensing’.