Architecture’s Forensic Gaze
建築的法證之眼
By Michael Kimmelman

Last year, Israeli police officers raided a Bedouin village in the Negev desert called Umm al-Hiran. Israeli authorities said that during the raid a villager had purposely run over an Israeli officer, killing him. They called it a terrorist attack. The villager died at the scene. Silent police helicopter footage seemed to show his car accelerating into the officer.
去年，以色列警察對內蓋夫沙漠一個名為烏姆艾希蘭的貝都因人村莊，進行了突擊搜捕行動。以色列當局表示，搜捕時有個村民蓄意駕車輾斃一名以色列警察，他們稱之為恐怖攻擊。這個村民也當場死亡。警方直升機拍攝的無聲畫面看似顯示，該村民所駕的車加速衝向警察。

Forensic Architecture uncovered a different story.
「法醫建築」則揭露出一個截然不同的故事。

You may recall Forensic Architecture from headlines a few years back. It investigated the killing of two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank. Local and international media crews were on hand when the teenagers were killed. Security cameras recorded the shootings. At first, Israel’s minister of defense said the teenagers had been throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers, despite security footage showing otherwise. The minister said the footage had been doctored.
你可能會從數年前的頭條新聞回想起「法醫建築」這個組織。它調查了兩名巴勒斯坦青少年在約旦河西岸遭殺害的事件。兩名青少年遇害時，當地和國際媒體採訪人員就在近處。監視器也錄下了槍擊經過。最初，以色列國防部長說，青少年向以色列士兵投擲汽油彈，儘管監視器畫面顯示的是另一回事。 該部長說，影片被人動了手腳。

Forensic Architecture combed through the videos and social media posts. Using architectural rendering software, it pieced together a computer model of the site and tracked the trajectory of the bullets. That pinpointed the soldier who fired them and the weapon he used. Comparing acoustic signatures, Forensic Architecture then matched the fatal shots to the distinct sounds of live ammunition, contradicting the military’s claim that only rubber bullets had been fired. All this contributed to Israeli officials reversing themselves, and charging the soldier with manslaughter.
「法醫建築」爬梳了這些影片和社群媒體張貼的一些內容。該組織運用建築渲染軟體拼湊出一個事發現場的電腦模型，並追蹤了子彈的軌跡。它精確地指出是哪個軍人朝他們開槍和使用的武器。比對聲學特徵後，「法醫建築」還發現致命的槍擊與實彈射擊的獨特聲音吻合，和軍方聲稱軍人只發射了塑膠彈相矛盾。所有這些最後促使以色列官員推翻自己的說法，並控告那名軍人過失殺人。

A survey of Forensic Architecture’s work is now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, through May 6. A collaborative of designers, filmmakers, coders, archaeologists, psychologists and others, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, Forensic Architecture acts more or less like a detective agency. It partners with groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Its funders include the European Research Council. And its investigations are whodunits. Eyal Weizman, an Israeli-British architect, is the group’s founder and resident Columbo.
「法醫建築」工作的一項縱覽正在倫敦的當代藝術中心展出，展到5月6日。「法醫建築」總部設在倫敦大學金匠學院，結合了設計師、製片家、編碼人、考古學家以及心理學家等，扮演的角色或多或少像個偵探社。它與「國際特赦」和「人權觀察」等組織結為夥伴。金主包括歐洲研究委員會。它的調查工作是一部部的推理小說。以色列裔英籍建築師埃亞勒．魏茲曼是這個組織的創辦人，也是駐社神探。

Instead of creating a house or skyscraper, the group scours for evidence of lies, crimes and human rights violations – combining the spatial and engineering skills of architects, the data-gathering prowess of librarians, the doggedness of investigative journalists and the storytelling finesse of screenwriters. Its reports have annoyed Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party, frustrated Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, provoked an attack from Vladimir Putin’s Russia Today news service, and infuriated officials in Israel.
該組織不建造房屋或摩天大樓，而是結合建築師的空間和工程技術，圖書館員的資料蒐集本事，調查記者的緊追不捨，以及編劇的敘事技巧，從事搜尋證據的工作，拆穿說謊、犯罪和侵犯人權的行為。該組織的報告曾經惹火德國的基民黨，令敘利亞總統阿塞德沮喪不已，還引來俄羅斯總統普亭的「俄羅斯今天」通訊社痛批，令以色列官員發了雷霆之怒。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/arts/design/forensic-architecture-human-rights.html

2018-04-22聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 王麗娟

說文解字看新聞 王麗娟

文章主要討論英國「法醫建築」（Forensic Architecture）此一組織的角色與功能，兩個舉例恰好都與以色列用武過當有關。forensic是形容詞，意為「法醫的」、「刑事鑑識的」，指與科學辦案有關的事務，用法如forensic evidence（法醫證據、鑑識證據）、 forensic science（法醫科學、鑑識科學）。台灣家喻戶曉的李昌鈺博士則是位刑事鑑識專家（forensic expert）。

forensic也當名詞用，意為「法醫」、「刑事鑑識」。在非正式用法中， 鑑識科（Forensic Laboratory，Forensic Department）經常省略實驗室（laboratory ）或部門（department）一字 ，只以forensic（Forensic）代表鑑識科。

forensic的名詞為forensics，如 Network/Internet Forensics（ 網路鑑識），主要指調查以網路為媒介從事犯罪的鑑識工作，如從線上遊戲盜取遊戲貨幣的鑑識工作屬於此一範圍。 Digital Forensics（數位鑑識）的工作則是針對數位裝置中的內容，進行調查與復原。

Smart Kitchens A Tough Sell, But Tech Tries
科技產品 進攻你家廚房
By Brian X. Chen

On a recent Saturday night, German Salazar made chicken tacos for his friends while they chatted with him in his kitchen. Occasionally, he interrupted the conversation to talk to another friend: Google.
最近的一個周六晚上，傑曼．薩拉札在他的廚房裡邊和朋友聊天，邊替他們做雞肉塔可餅吃。偶爾，他也會中斷對話，去和另一個朋友說話：谷歌。

Salazar was speaking to Google Home, the artificially intelligent speaker living on his kitchen counter. “Hey Google, set a timer for 20 minutes,” he said, to activate a countdown for when the chicken would be cooked and ready for shredding.
薩拉札是和他廚房流理台上的Google Home說話，它是個人工智慧喇叭。他說：「嘿，谷歌，設定一個20分鐘計時」，好啟動一個倒數計時，這時間可將雞煮熟，拿來切絲。

At first, Salazar’s friends snickered when he talked to the speaker. But after a few bottles of wine, everyone began grilling Google Home with questions and requests: “How much did Jamie Lee Curtis make in ‘True Lies’?” and “Tell me a joke.”
最初，薩拉札對著喇叭講話時，朋友一旁竊笑。但幾瓶葡萄酒下肚後，每個人都開始拿問題考問Google Home，「潔美李寇帝斯在電影《魔鬼大帝：真實謊言》的片酬多少？」，「說個笑話吧」。

For many people, the kitchen is the center of the home and a locus for interactions that go beyond preparing and eating food. Now tech companies and appliance makers, aiming to deepen their relationships with customers, are increasingly targeting the room that is synonymous with togetherness.
對許多人而言，廚房是家的中心 ，是除了準備食物和吃東西，一個彼此互動的場所。現在，意在加深與客戶關係的高科技公司和家電製造商，正越來越將目標瞄準與親密感畫上等號的這個空間。

Household brands like Whirlpool, Samsung and Bosch are racing against tech behemoths like Google and Amazon to dominate the kitchen with internet-connected appliances and cooking gadgets that include refrigerators embedded with touch screens, smart dishwashers and connected countertop screens with artificially intelligent assistants that react to spoken commands.
諸如惠而浦、三星和博世等家電品牌正與谷歌和亞馬遜這些科技巨頭競爭，冀望以自家連接網路的電器和烹飪設備主宰廚房，這些裝具包括內建觸控螢幕的冰箱，智慧洗碗機，以及內有人工智慧助理，會對口頭命令作反應，與網路連接的流理台螢幕。

Yet the “smart kitchen” remains a tough sell. With the kitchen often a hub for families and friends, habits there can be hard to change. And many people see the kitchen and mealtimes as a haven from their otherwise always-connected lifestyle. Only 5 percent of U.S. households own smart appliances today, up from 3 percent in 2014, according to the research firm Parks Associates.
不過，智慧廚房仍然行銷不易。廚房往往是家人和朋友相處的核心空間，因此廚房習慣很難改變。此外，許多人將廚房和用餐時間視為避風港，希望能暫時逃離永遠和網路連接的生活方式。根據「帕克斯聯合」研究公司的調查，現今只有5％的美國家庭擁有智慧家電，2014年則為3％。

“Will we see a reinvention of the kitchen like we saw in the living room?” said Michael Wolf, a tech analyst who hosts a podcast and a conference about the smart kitchen. “I don’t think it will happen overnight. There’s going to be a lot of skepticism.”
身為科技產品分析師兼播客，並主持一項智慧廚房會議的邁可．沃爾夫說：「我們會見到廚房也像客廳那樣被改造嗎？我不認為這會在一夕之間發生。人們會有許多疑慮。」

Apart from their fears of disrupting the rhythms and patterns in the heart of the home, people may be hesitant to incorporate smart devices into their kitchens because of the costs of maintaining such appliances, which are often difficult to repair and use expensive components like touch screens. They also may worry about longevity: A touch-screen refrigerator may look modern today, but who knows how dated it may appear in five years?
除了擔心可能擾亂這個家庭中心點的節奏和模式，維修這些家電的成本，也可能令人對是否該將智慧裝置整合到廚房中猶豫不決。這些家電通常很難修理，且使用的是昂貴的組件，如觸控螢幕。人們或許還擔心使用壽命：觸控螢幕冰箱今天可能看來很摩登，誰又知道五年後會顯得多麼過時？

And with many smart kitchen appliances incorporating internet connections, cameras or microphones, digital privacy has become a concern.
隨著許多智慧廚房家電納入了網路連接、相機或麥克風，數位隱私權也成為令人關切的議題。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/technology/smart-homes-tech-kitchen.html  

2018-04-22聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 王麗娟