'Predictive policing' is a collective term for all the ways in which the police have searched big data and extract information from it for the prevention of crime since 2008 – criticized for the lack of transparent algorithms and prejudices. Robert Glas mainly wants to approach the effects of predictive policing: what influence does it have on the imputability of debt? What does it mean for the rule of law if the enforcement power uses people's predictability, while the judiciary dismisses it and reminds people of their own responsibility ? Glas: “How inconsistent can a constitutional state as a whole be?” Think of defenses such as 'my client had no other choice' because of a difficult childhood, and statements with forced care. He ultimately wants to use this preliminary research to make a short film about the tension between statistical prediction and guilt.
Through photography, film and installations, Glas investigates the formal structures of the state, its laws and regulations, and the technology used to achieve them. In 2019 he received the Charlotte Köhler prize and his work has been shown in the Kunsthal, Foam and the Van Abbemuseum, including previous R&D projects. This new plan also appealed to the R&D committee, as a study that will result in an aesthetically and socially urgent interplay.
After this award, Glas obtained an example of predictive policing from the Rotterdam police system, namely a predictive card for street robbery. He then chose a location for the film, which partly also takes place in court, to combine with an actor's brain MRI - three image studies. He started writing the script during an artist-in-residence fellowship at the NIAS and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. By incorporating the first phase of this film plan into an R&D project, he was given room for visual experiments without heading for a predefined end result, a freedom that benefits his practice in the long term. In 2020, he completed the film, titled Absence of All Guilt.