Urban-Data Complex presented two recent investigations at the Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2017 that encapsulate the idea of reading and reconstructing violence through the city form.

The first investigation, The Bombing of Rafah, was undertaken in close partnership with Amnesty International, this investigation focuses on four days of the summer 2014 attack on Gaza by the Israeli military. The controversial Hannibal directive resulted in the heaviest civilian death toll of the entire conflict, and the extensive destruction of Rafah’s built environment.

The second investigation explored through this exhibition was Air Strike Atimah. This case used clips found in social media websites online to investigate three air strikes on 8 March 2015, near the town of Atimah in Syria and the displaced persons camp of the same name, both abutting the Northern border to Turkey.

Videos and images from the investigations were accompanied by bomb cloud models. A bomb cloud is made of everything a building once was: concrete, plaster, soil, glass, flesh, and is thus architecture in gaseous form, an event as monument that exists for seven to nine minutes. If modelled correctly, it can also provide valuable evidence in legal cases. Forensic Architecture are able to use mainstream and social media images of these clouds to create 3D models, which help to approximate the date and precise location of bomb strikes, aiding human rights agencies to compile valuable reports about conflict zones.

Stills from the exhibition by OSHIMA Kenichiro © TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC ART MUSEUM