Experiencing the Torture Prison – Amnesty International & Forensic Architecture’s Audio-Visual-Spatial Assemblage of “Saydnaya”

In this paper, we ask how academics, activists and artists utilize visibility not as a critical tool to detect violence, document human rights violations and, finally, hold perpetrators accountable. In a joint project, Amnesty International (AI) and Forensic Architecture rebuild the prison of Saydnaya / Syria where over 12.000 identifiable people were killed during detention between 2011 and 2015. Based on testimonies by six former detainees, the experts of Forensic Architecture created an interactive 3D audio-visual-spatial model of the prison, including documentary satellite images, interviews, sounds and animated spaces (https://saydnaya.amnesty.org/). Within this model - an audio-visual-spatial assemblage of different kind of data - vision and visuality are used as a critical method in processes of critique, contestation, and negotiation over memories, beliefs and routines. The architectural design offers a critique of the spatial and audible manifestation of torture in Syria. Nevertheless, we should not forget that what is made visible and audible and what remains literally and figuratively in the dark is a powerful choice, too. We might only remember what is aesthetically presented. How do "we" see and hear the prison? How do "we" sensually experience the everyday lifeworld of detainees aesthetically? How does the model refer to its worldly materiality? Finally, how does such an audio-visual-spatial assemblage contribute to transitional justice and the making of a more peaceful and democratic society? Key words: audio-visual art, torture prison, transitional justice, visibility