*Seminar + Symposium

What are the media cultures of self-authorized “people’s” tribunals that render judgments without legal standing? And which media cultures are specifically prone to be tribunalized?
What are the ethic-aesthetic capacities of tribunals, and which potential dangers derive from tribunalization?

Media theoretically and cultural analytically this seminar investigates contemporary media cultures of tribunals. Furthermore, it examines tribunalization phenomena in media cultures more generally, focusing on “forensic aesthetics” ranging from various forms of witnessing, over evidence procedure, to propagandistic strategies, and activist rhetoric.

Tribunal media cultures & media cultures of tribunals: What are the media cultural conditions of various self-authorized people’s tribunals engaging in truth finding and rendering judgments without legal standing? Differing in context and procedure, the case studies under investigation include socially-engaged tribunalizations hosted by platforms of contemporary arts (e.g., Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes [2021–2022] organized Radha D'Souza and Jonas Staal), theatrical courts (e.g., Wiener Prozesse [2024] or the Kongo Tribunal [2015] initiated by Milo Rau), social movements and civil society activism organized as tribunal (e.g., Tribunal: Unraveling the NSU Complex [2017–]), and global alliances built around tribunal hearings (e.g., International Rights of Nature Tribunal [2014–]).

Tribunalization of and through forensic aesthetics: “Forensic aesthetics” (Weizman 2017) has many facets, which can involve (i) witnessing, (ii) intelligence, (iii) evidence procedures, and (iv) fora of presentation and negotiation. Up for discussion are investigations by actors such as Forensic Architecture / Forensis, bellingcat, and the Center for Spatial Technologies as well as investigative video (art) works and exhibitions by Susan Schuppli and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, operating through forensic aesthetics as both methodology of sensing and making perceptible as well as style, rhetoric, and genre.

The seminar sessions revolve around the following topics and concerns:

• Tribunals/Tribunalizations: Case Studies at the Crossroads of Para-Legal Fora and Contemporary Arts
• Forensics Supported by Evidence and Propaganda: Counter Forensics, Pseudo Forensics, Forensic Aesthetics
• Symposium @Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures
• Subjectivities: “Cyberwar’s Subjects” put in dialogue with the “Implicated Subject”
• Witnessing: “Media Witnessing”, “Material Witness”, and “Nonhuman Witnessing”
• Investigation/Intelligence: Investigative-Immersive Journalism and Open-Source Intelligence
• Prospects: De/Tribunalizing Media Cultures

• Active participation in the seminar
• Input presentation on a core topic (kindly sign up in the introductory session)
• Readings
• Visiting the panel "Atmospheres of Conflict" at the symposium In Terms of Media...: On Data Materialism, Techno Poetics, Atmospheres of Conflict, and Planetary Interfaces @Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures
• Scientific or artistic-research (video-)essay, due February 23, 2025

Optional: Visiting the entire symposium, November 20–22:
https://www.dieangewandte.at/en/news/detail?artikel_id=1729737738229

Relevant materials will be uploaded to a folder on Base Cloud.

Please note that deregistration is no longer possible after the introductory session, in order to ensure an atmosphere of dedicated collective learning.