Viewing Science and Society Through Art By Christine Byrd
American Monument
invites you to put a record on, but what you hear may make you uncomfortable. The turntables mounted on 22 white pedestals play audio from police body cams and eyewitness recordings from some of the most notorious examples of police brutality against African Americans. The monument, created by artist lauren woods, will be at the Beall Center for Art + Technology through Feb. 8, where it marries law and art, offering visitors the opportunity to engage with an often difficult and polarizing topic. “Public visibility of police brutality has increased in recent years,” says Kimberli Meyer, the curator and cultural producer 6
for American Monument. “This work of art provides a way to go beyond the spectacle, to witness on a granular level how law is culture.”
Law and Art UCI faculty from informatics, law, social ecology, humanities and arts worked together to bring American Monument to UCI, and to run programming that engages visitors in closely analyzing the legal cases on display. “There’s this cool intersection between law and art that American Monument curates for our students and community,” says Sora Han, associate professor of criminology, law and society in the School of Social Ecology.
