Triple Chaser

The London-based research group Forensic Architecture, a candidate for the 2018 Turner Prize, presents the Triple Chaser project, which takes its name from a tear gas grenade. In November 2018, US agents launched gas against civilians at the Mexican border. Images showed that many of the grenades were Triple Chasers, manufactured by Safariland Group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of so-called “non-lethal ammunition”. Safariland is owned by Warren B. Kanders, vice president of the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. This video, narrated by former Talking Heads singer David Byrne, is part of the Triple Chaser research project. Since the sale and export of tear gas isn’t publicly recorded, the only way to trace the grenades’ sale and use is to monitor images on the internet. The project’s aim is to identify the grenades and study their use against the population through the examination of millions of images shared on the web via digital technology. In July 2019, after their discovery of Kanders’ involvement in the arms market, Forensic Architecture withdrew from the Whitney Biennial.