mono.kultur #48
Berlin’s mono.kultur has long been a favourite but this new issue is particularly exciting. Page 23 highlights the key theme of the issue.
As each new issue consists of one long interview with a single creative, how a reader responds to it is as much a reflection of that individual subject as it is the magazine itself. In issue 48 we meet Eyal Weizman, the founder of Forensic Architecture, a research agency that uses technology to investigate human rights violations across the world.
The interview is a fascinating read. Perhaps best-known in the UK for their work on the Mark Duggan case, multiple investigations unfold across the issue to reveal how the agency use surveillance technologies and AI for good instead of bad.
The grid of images on Page 23 is a great example of this direction. They’re part of a project where Forensic Architecture is training algorithms to detect tear gas canisters. Working with an archive of over 4,000 videos they hope to develop the ability to spot tear gas use in real time. ‘Automating the process has the potential to save many months of manual, human-directed research,’ explains the caption. The images here are a set of the more extreme examples used to train the alogorithms.
We’re so used to hearing of the negative use of such technologies, it’s refreshing to find positive uses highlighted.
Publisher: Kai von Rabenau
Interview: Freya Marshall
Design: Hui Yeon Hwang