On Reconstruction I (2018), 2:26min

What remains after an event are merely signs left behind in physical spaces or individual memory. Communities and individuals often have a desire to reconstruct these signs into narratives regarding past events, especially after trauma. More than truth, these reconstructions serve consensus. When a unanimous view of the past is formed, facts can be drawn and justice imposed.

Attempt at Calculating Negligence examines the interplay between grief and significance, the personal and the public, and mathematical and experiential knowledge. The work is based around a mathematical reconstruction commissioned by the Helsinki Police Department of a drunken hit-and-run that killed my sister in 2012. There were no eye-witnesses to the crash and the driver himself was too drunk to remember any details. Thus it is impossible to know exactly how the collision took place.

My subjective experience of loss has never had anything to do with the physical aspects of the event. At the time, the police went to great lengths in creating a detailed computer simulation based on measurements taken at the scene that describes the moment of impact. In the video loop lasting a few seconds, a human dummy representing my sister takes its first steps on a crosswalk before being hit by a nondescript sedan.

The work is composed of an essay text, photographs, a 2-channel photogrammetric video reconstruction, excerpts from the police report of the case and an interview with the road accident investigator. In an exhibition space, the installation of these elements confronts the viewer with a question: What kind of meaning are mathematical models able to provide?