Forensic imaginaries: visualising the corpse in law.
This article examines how forensic imaging technology transforms the way legal institutions visualise the corpse in the twenty-first century. Technological innovations in radiology have problematised the ‘subjectivity’ of the forensic gaze by embedding novel optical devices between the dead body, me...
| Published in: | Mortality pp. 1 - 15 |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Sep2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=188016401&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 188016401 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 13576275 MIY jtl: Mortality issn: 13576275 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep2025 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania artinfo: ui: 188016401 10.1080/13576275.2025.2556155 188016401 ppf: 1 ppct: 14 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Forensic imaginaries: visualising the corpse in law. aug: au: Trabsky, Marc affil: Monash University sug: ab: This article examines how forensic imaging technology transforms the way legal institutions visualise the corpse in the twenty-first century. Technological innovations in radiology have problematised the ‘subjectivity’ of the forensic gaze by embedding novel optical devices between the dead body, medico-legal expert, and judicial observer. These advancements have also made demands on coroners, judges and lawyers to acquire new skills in deciphering the meaning of pixelated shadows and interpreting digital images as evidence of death. Post-mortem CT comprises both a mechanical instrument and a computational technique that virtualises the corpse by disassembling it into an undefined set of slices and reassembling it into a three-dimensional model. In transmogrifying the materiality of organs, tissues and bones onto multi-planar reconstructions, the technology claims to produce an ‘objective’ image of the dead body, unmediated by the fallibility of human judgement. Yet through an assemblage of instruments, techniques, actors and expertise, post-mortem CT offers judicial observers the allure of seeing ‘corporeal evidence’ with their own eyes. The article argues that forensic imaging technology creates a new visual epistemology of the corpse. It enables judicial observers access to a visual regime that questions the subjectivity of the medico-legal expert, while also acknowledging the limits of law’s capacity to self-evidently know the corpse. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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