GROUND TRUTH

Translating research by Forensic Architecture

Multi-cam live broadcast of, trailer and intro about, and evening dramaturgy with multiple projection design of Forensic Architecture’s investigation ‘GROUND TRUTH: The al-Araqib Museum of Struggle’ of Episode 1 of The Future of Demonstration, an art series with 2 seasons and 8 episodes 2017

GROUND TRUTH – Testimonies of dispossession, destruction, and return in the Naqab/Negev
This transitory museum was a collaboration with the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Araqib and dedicated to the ongoing struggle for their ancestral land in the Naqab Desert, Israel. A collaborative mapping involves aerial photography from kites (with Public Lab) and historical research (with the NGO Zochrot). With the local families we have produced a body of evidence that assembles historical reading of the silver salt grains of the 1945 RAF aerial images of the area, through the pixel grids of contemporary satellites to the floating point-cloud particles of our low flying kite surveys.

CREDITS

CONTRIBUTORS:
Aziz al-Turi (Bedouin Activist)
Ariel Caine (Coordinator, Forensic Architecture)
Eyal Weizman (Principle Investigator, Forensic Architecture)

EVENING DRAMATURGY:
Ariel Caine & Manu Luksch

ASSOCIATED FILM ARTIST / LIVE BROADCAST: Manu Luksch

SOUND DESIGN: Mukul.
VOICE: Anna Mendelssohn.
INTERPRETOR: Inas Altaweel.

STREAM: Michael Loizenbauer.
CAMERA: David Kleinl, Kurt van der Vloedt, Bernhard Mayr.
VIDEO TECHNICIAN: Matija Serdar / PrimeART Medienwerkstatt.
CAMERA ASSISTENCE: Katharina Mackowiak.

CONCEPTION The Future of Demonstration: Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler

INTRODUCTION
“Look, if your data is based on assumption, subject to opinion, or up for discussion, then, by definition, that is not Ground Truth data. Do not theorize before you have that factual data that has been observed or measured. That has not been inferred.
Listen, in remote sensing, Ground Truth refers to information collected on location. On site. Ground truth allows image data to be related to real features and materials on the ground. Take this example- ground truth may refer to a process in which a pixel on a satellite image is compared to what is there in reality, at the present time, in order to verify the contents of this one pixel on the image.
Your ability to solve a problem using data science depends tremendously on if you can establish Ground Truth. Data, that can be analyzed objectively.
See, this is what NASA’s glossary says GROUND TRUTH: Geophysical parameter data, measured or collected by other means than by the instrument itself, used as correlative or calibration data for that instrument data. Ground truth data are another measurement of the phenomenon of interest; they are not necessarily more “true” or more accurate than the instrument data.
The overarching ground truth is that no expert—human or machine—can identify all relevant information in all data at all times. Distilling knowledge effortlessly from data calls for collaborative human and remote sensing engagement.
Or, in Denis Diderot’s words “What has not been examined impartially, has not been well examined. Scepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.”

Ground Truth?”

Written by Manu Luksch, performed by Anna Mendelson