Dark Markets is a two day strategic conference that looked into the state of the art of media politics, information technologies, and theories of democracy. A variety of international speakers inquired into strategies of oppositional movements and discussed the role of new media.
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Anyone involved with "tactical media" (TM) before its famed christening in 1996 at the Next Five Minutes had to know that naming this cultural/political tendency was going to have some very negative repercussions. The naming was the first step in doing what TM feared the most°Xclaiming cultural territory doomed to house haunting archives. Once given an official title, so many nasty processes could begin - most significantly, the construction of historical narratives. So many narratives already exist explaining this ephemeral, immediate, specific, and deterritorialized process of cultural production that seemed so urgent to so many radical subjects in the early 90s.
Migration and media-activists gather with theorists and labour organizers to discuss and share best practices in the fight against precarity and insecure labour conditions. Sharing inspiring examples of social justice unionism and creative campaigning like Justice for Janitors in the U.S. and Cleaners For a Better Future in the Netherlands.
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INC Network Notebooks 05 - Legacies of Tactical Media
Tactical Media employ the 'tactics of the weak' to operate on the terrain of strategic power by means of 'any media necessary'. Once the rather exclusive practice of politically engaged artists and activists, the tactical appropriations of media tools and distribution infrastructures by the disenfranchised and the disgruntled have moved from the margins to centre stage.
Increase the level of paranoia.....
bombs in the metro.....bombs in Oklahoma......
bombs in the World Trade Center.....bombs in Mururoa.....
Who are the real terrorists?
The Internet was started in the 1970's by the U.S. Defense Departmentas a communications tool and is now being bought out by I.B.M., M.C.I.and other megaCorporations. April, 1995 marked the closing of theNational Science Foundation's part of the internet, and signaled thebeginning of the end of the publicly funded computer networkinfrastructure.
Filmmaker and activist Gregg Bordowitz's passage through the
1980s mirrors the course of AIDS activism in that decade. From the very
first ACT up demonstration in New York to the triumphal storming of the
FDA headquarters outside Washington, DC, he deployed his art in the
battle against AIDS. Bordowitz leads off this two-issue series of
personal chronicles of the decade, recounting his experiences as an
activist and guerrilla filmmaker at the forefront of the fight.
"Art
does have the power to save lives, and it is this very power that must
be recognized, fostered, and supported in every way possible."
- Douglas Crimp, introduction to AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism (MIT Press, 1988)
The four-day conference on the campus of the Universidade Estadual de
Campinas (Unicamp) brought together many key persons from the tactical
media movement of Brazil and some of their counterparts in the
Brasilian government.
The movement is converging from roots in
free radio, free software, hardware hacking, art and social movements.
It is currently focussed around a large-scale project master-minded by
Claudio Prado and supported by the Ministry of Culture: ?Pontos de
Cultura? (Culture Spots) which is aiming to empower up to 600 cultural
projects with free software-based multimedia production and publication
facilities.
"Free Pussy Riot collective members Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from Russian prison and drop all charges now. Write a letter of support pussriotsolidarity@gmail.com visit the site freepussyriot.org & donate/sign petition"
ReadIn the past several years a lively list serve has evolved that addresses issue of incarceration and justice in the United States. Each night I log on to messages that range from desperate pleadings for someone life to cautious discussions of what the slogans should be on the posters for the next Mumia march. There are technical descriptions of prison architecture and quests for herbal cures to cell block bronchitis epidemics. It is the underside of what is one of our leading industries: locking people up.
