Panel discussion on the instrumentalization of digital visual forensics and media complicity: What role do 3D animations play in the Israeli military’s propaganda strategy? How are media logics, modeling practices, and the legitimization of state violence connected?
The event presents an investigation into the Israeli military’s use of 3D animations, published by +972 Magazine, The Ferret, SRF, and the research collective Viewfinder. Focusing on the circulation of animated models, satellite imagery, and simulated interiors, the discussion examines how open-source techniques of forensic reconstruction - once understood as tools of empowerment - are repurposed by state actors to produce credibility and legitimize violence.
These images are generated under conditions of extreme asymmetry: the sites depicted are often inaccessible, destroyed, or actively erased, while visual narratives are released in advance of, or alongside, military strikes on those very locations. The panel will address how such "illustrations" function as putative evidence, how visual certainty is manufactured through speculative modeling, commercial assets, and narrative compression, and how these images circulate through international media.
With Jack Sapoch (open-source investigator), Nicole Vögele (filmmaker), Jake Charles Rees (London Centre for Investigative Journalism), and Oren Ziv (Activestills)
Moderation: Matthias Monroy (nd)
Villa Heike, Freienwalder Str. 17, Alt-Hohenschönhausen, 13055 Berlin
The event will be held in English.
Until the finissage on 14 February, the exhibition "Activestills – Documenting Life, Death, and Resistance in Palestine" will also be on view at the venue. Opening times: Friday (4 - 8 p.m.), Saturday & Sunday (2 - 8 p.m.)
Berlin
Berlin
Deutschland