Publication: Legacies of Tactical Media - The Tactics of Occupation: From Tompkins Square to Tahrir. 

Out now and available for download:
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.

• tactical media,
• archive,
• theory,
• media theory,
• hybrid space,
• tactical camping,
• occupy,
• self-mediation,
• tactical research

In memoriam: Oleg Kireev 

On Friday April 3, 2009 we received the terribly sad news that our friend and ever inspiring colleague Oleg Kireev from Moscow had died, apparently as a result of suicide. We are left behind as friends and colleagues, bereaved and puzzled by this dramatic fact. Kireev was a prominent guest in some of the most important projects in the art / media / politics triangle, which we had the honour developing at De Balie. Kireev was a crucial figure in circles of free culture, media activism and the arts in Moscow, one of the most demanding environments for such activity one can think of.

• tactical media,
• Russia

Bas Raijmakers

Bas Raijmakers is the creative director of STBY. Since the early nineties he has worked in the internet and media industry as consultant and research manager. He holds a master degree in Communication Sciences from the University of Amsterdam (1990) and a PhD degree in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London (2007).

• next 5 minutes

Tjebbe van Tijen

Tjebbe vam Tijen is a Dutch artist, theorist and curator.

• art,
• archive,
• design,
• next 5 minutes

Wilde stakingen bij de vrije media! 

Door Geert Lovink
Amsterdam, december 1995
(voor Next 5 Minutes 2 - internationaal festival voor tactische media, 1996)

The ABC of Tactical Media 

Tactical Media are what happens when the cheap 'do it yourself' media, made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and expanded forms of distribution (from public access cable to the internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by or excluded from the wider culture. Tactical media do not just report events, as they are never impartial they always participate and it is this that more than anything separates them from mainstream media.

• tactical media,
• diy media,
• theory,
• media theory,
• next 5 minutes,
• tactical television

Pit Stop Manifesto 

1. Internet culture will bring the US, Western Europe, and the UK closer in to mental alignment,

• tactical media,
• net criticism,
• media criticism

PGO - The Post-Governmental Organisation 

One of the four main themes of the N5M3 is the 'Post-Governmental Organisation', a title that is meant more polemically than descriptively. The 'PGO' label raises the question of the practical, political and ethical impli cations of strong, potentially global, independent organisations. The theme will be approached from different critical, analytical and ironic perspectives in a public debate, and the PGO Design-Show ("Get Organised!").

• post-governmental organisation

A Pirate Utopia for Tactical Television 

In recent years Amsterdam has become known for its free-net the Digital City. Less well known but in some ways equally remarkable has been the emergence of Amsterdam's radical movement for public access television. This text is just a beginning, a highly selective historical snap shot.

• tactical media,
• community media,
• network cultures,
• next 5 minutes,
• amsterdam,
• tactical television

The Concept of Tactical Media 

Tactical Media emerged when the modest goals of media artists and media activists were transformed into a movement that challenged everyone to produce their own media in support of their own political struggles. This "new media" activism was based on the insight that the long-held distinction between the 'street' (reality) and the 'media' (representation) could no longer be upheld. On the contrary, the media had come to infuse all of society.

• tactical media,
• theory,
• media theory,
• tactical education,
• tactical research

Not Home 

"Happiness is where I am not"

Darko Fritz's Search for Home

• art,
• migration,
• borders

How Low Can You Go 

Projects that bend and stretch the possibilities of media technology. All levels are possible but we will definitely not fetishize high tech solution s. In fact N5M3 will counter the obsession with high technology. Instead of glitching the high-tech fantasies of many of the international art & tech events, N5M3 will make a vigorous effort to go low-tech.

Most media, and certainly common media, heavily depend on technology. "Media", actually is a term which is very hard to define; in many meanings of the word "media", technology is already implied. N5M3 will focus not only on the tactical potential of (new) media, it also wishes to reflect on the developments of media and media technology. The choice of media that we use, and the way we use these media is not completely self-evident or coincidental. Nor is it fully our own conscious decision. The construction of media technology instead is deeply political and political-economical.

• diy media,
• lowtech

Art After Activism? 

This debate will address some of the doubts that hard core activists have about the usefulness of art in a political context.

• art,
• activism

Some points of departure 

Introductory essay for the second editon of the Next 5 Minutes festival of tactical media, 1996.

• culture

A context for collecting the new media 

At the turning of the year 1992 I received the program and manifesto for the Next 5 Minutes Conference in Paradiso. As professional collector of documents by and about social movements for the International Institute of Social History, the list of videos to be shown caught my attention immediately. This was an excellent opportunity to realize something for which I had been trying already for some time, to make an international sample collection of products from the movement of new independent video makers.

• media,
• archive,
• next 5 minutes

Art and Political Conflict 

A public debate at Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, Sunday July 6, 2014 - 14.00 - 17.00 hrs.

The relationship between art and political conflict has been significantly reshaped by the proliferation of digital media and the internet as a means of instant dissemination of images, texts, and audiovisual expressions. Artistic /activist actions intervene via these digital means into an expanded symbolical space that is no longer the sole sanctuary of artists and art audiences, but instead has become the 'neural fibre' of everyday life.

• tactical media,
• activism,
• theory,
• media theory,
• middle east,
• tactical research

Intro for Net. activism Forum 

Ten years ago, there were few online activists and they believed that "cyberspace" was all theirs, a territory from which to emerge anywhere, outflanking the lumbering second-wave dinosaurs responsible for the Cold War and its successor, the McWorld. In the future that actually unfolded, the dinosaurs learned to boot up computers, connect to the Internet and post Web pages, or pay someone to do all this for them. What was a poor online activist to do? Even the son of Slobodan Milosevic has a Web site, to promote his Belgrade dance club.

• activism,
• net.activism

Security through InSecurity 

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?

Hippy Cull 

from Underground, PO Box 3285, London, SW2 3NN, UK

1. Neo-hippyism is upon us: a bumper pack of seriously dumb tendenciesthat cripple processes of change. Some of these tendencies relate toideas, and some of them to action, they range from the 'political' tothe way people dress. They form the aesthetic, theoretical and materialdatabases people use to inform and develop what they are getting up to.This database needs reformatting.