Deconstruction 2
Deconstruction
I borrow Tim Ingold’s concept of making to explain why the process I went through might be relevant to the design practice. It was a “process of growth”. It means to put myself since the beginning as a participant in what he calls “a world of active materials”.
In the process of making, I “join forces” with the materials, “bringing them together or splitting them apart, synthesising and distilling, in anticipation of what might emerge.”1
1. Tim Ingold, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, (London: New York: Routledge, 2013)
1442 pieces, 8 layers
8 layers - top view images 3D models
If the rubble was seen through a satellite image, it will be represented by 4 pixels.
If this rubble was seen through a satellite image, it will be represented by 4 pixels. In satellite images, a single color pixel represents 50 cm of surface area. This resolution defined by international regulations allows part of buildings to be identified and to be analysed in an architectural perpective. Eyal Weizman compares this analysis with “an act of archeology of the present”. “An architectural reconstruction based on an analysis of images and the ways these images are composed in pixels”.
Before and after satellite images of destructed sites has been used by human rights institutions as main evidences of war crimes. However, the 50cm per pixel resolution is not enough to show people and the human are excluded of the evidence. Besides, with the increase of the algorithmic process of data representation instead of people for viewing those images, the human is being even more excluded. According to Weizman, the human rights analysis entered in a post-human phase. 2
2. Eyal Weizman, Before and After: Documenting the Architecture of Disaster (Strelka Press,2014)
“[...] to intentionally direct an attack against historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion constitutes a war crime [...]”
fatou Bensouda
For the first time, the International Criminal Court of the Hague convicted a man as a war criminal based only in cultural property destruction. Al Mahdi planned and executed the destruction of the mausoleums of Timbuktu in Mali, a heritage site inscribed in UNESCO’s list.
On one hand there was good reactions by the cultural heritage professionals because it highlights the importance of cultural heritage for humanity. On the other hand, human rights advocates were concerned that the crimes of rape, torture and murder of citizens of Mali by the same man was not investigated by the court.
One might have the impression that human lives are less valuable than buildings and artifacts. But the issue regarding cultural heritage and human rights goes beyond the court in the Hague. The essay Cultural Heritage and Human Rights: a Holistic Approach Beyond the Hague is part of this project and reflects on this issue.
“the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a landmark in gaining recognition for the importance of heritage for humanity as a whole and for the communities that have preserved it over the centuries”
Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO
