What does it mean to critically investigate crime and its entanglement with computational technologies? We are joined by Anna Engelhardt and Peter Polack for a conversation on investigatory practices between art and technology and the role of algorithmic and parametric techniques in the reconstruction of a crime.  

Anna Engelhardt is an alias of a video artist and writer. Her investigative practice follows the traces of material violence, focusing on what could be seen as the 'ghost' of information. The toxic information environments Engelhardt deals with stem from structures of occupation and dispossession. She will reflect on the role of an investigatory art practice in the era of highly mediatised war crimes, considering what it means to reconstruct a crime scene, the perpetrator and the process of which is known.

Peter Polack's research and artwork addresses the role of political imaginaries, theories and fictions in confronting police and military information systems. He is a researcher and software developer at Forensic Architecture in London, and holds a PhD in Information Studies from UCLA and an MS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Through examining modern policing software, Polack discusses how the advent of algorithmic and parametric modes of reasoning make the objectivity of crime even more malleable, challenging fundamental assumptions about law and justice.