Historical Background of the US Biowarfare Program 

In light of the current FBI/Patriot Act investigations against Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), it is worthwhile to point out two moments from the history of the US government?s involvement in biowarfare. The first concerns the specific issue of access to knowledge, education, and resources in the life sciences. The second concerns the general backdrop of US biodefense ideology. All of this information has been confirmed by several sources, and has been in the public domain for some time (see the references below).
Needless to say, this is not meant to be a comprehensive ?history? of biowarfare. Instead, it is a perspective on biowarfare from the vantage point of US involvement. What is evident is that the US government?s involvement in biowarfare raises far more substantial questions than the investigation of dissenting artists.

• biotechnology,
• biowarfare

Borders: Walking Across, as opposed to Flying Above 

This text was written in July 2003, at the height of the tension on the border between India and Pakistan. Following elections in Pakistan, and in the Indian administered part of Kashmir, the two countries have agreed to de-escalate and troops on both sides are now on their way back to "peace time" positions. Relations between the two governments however, continue to be tense.

• politics,
• war,
• Religion,
• migration,
• no border,
• borders,
• India

How much of this is fiction. @ FACT, Liverpool 

Exploring the radical shift in the boundary between fiction and reality in a world increasingly governed by ‘post-truth’ politics

Exhibition @ FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool,  2 March 2017 - 21 May 2017
Public Opening: Thursday 2 March / 6 - 8pm / All galleries

• politics,
• art,
• tactical media,
• infopolitics,
• culture jamming,
• meme wars,
• tactical research

The Occupied Times of London Editorial, Issue #23, "Technology", November 2013. 

The latest issue of The Occupied Times of London is devoted to the question of technology in contemporary forms of political contestation. The main question thrown up by  the editors is to ask: "What is technology for?" (TMF editors)

• politics,
• activism,
• tactical technology,
• occupy

Engaging Ambivalence 

Interventions in Engineering Cultures

The most significant underwriter of engineering research in the United States is the Department of Defense, largely acting through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA exists to channel funds from the military to academic and corporate research labs in exchange for technological innovations that serve the needs of its clients - the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. As DARPA public relations officers are fond of pointing out, innovations funded by DARPA grants may also find expression in civilian applications, particularly in the communications and aerospace industries.

• contestational robotics

Tactical Media After 9-11 

It is tempting to portray '9-11' as a turning point. Gore Vidal warns that, since September 11, the US is in danger of turning into a "seedy imperial state." Make war, not politics. The new patriotism requires: "Disruption, including obstructing the view or hearing of others, will not be tolerated." The list of measures to restrict civil liberties, freedom of speech and privacy, or what?s left of it, doesn?t stop. A recent conference in Perth concluded that post-September 11 reporting adds to divisions and stereotypes. "The media's failure to provide more perspectives to news consumers and ask critical questions is fuelling a culture of fear and blame around the world, experts say."

• tactical media,
• 9/11

Border Camp 99 

Borders are there to be crossed. Their significance becomes obvious only when they are violated--and it says quite a lot about a society's political and social climate when one sees what kind of border-crossing a government tries to prevent.  Everybody knows that it is increasingly easy for money, goods, and capital to cross the borders of nation-states and territories; that the spreading of information can no longer be restricted; that social, political, or economic conflicts cannot be reduced to national affairs anymore. 

• campaign,
• activism,
• migration,
• no border,
• tactical camping

When Thought Becomes Crime* 

March 17th, 2005

How did it come to this?

Only a perverse authoritarian logic can explain how Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) can at one moment be creating the project "Free Range Grain" for the Risk exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, reconfiguring it for The Interventionists exhibition at Mass MoCA in a second moment, and then suddenly have a CAE member in FBI detention.   The U.S. Justice Department has accused us of such shocking crimes as bioterrorism, health and safety violations, mail fraud, wire fraud, and even murder.   Now, as we retool "Free Range Grain" for the Risk exhibition at the Glasgow Center for Contemporary Art, the surreal farce of our legal nightmare continues unabated.

• campaign,
• state repression

The revolution WILL be broadcast - at least locally 

This essay provides a short and insightful overview of alternative television projects in the Italy of Berlusconi.

• tactical television,
• telestreet,
• Italy

As power becomes traceable: raising the stakes on critique 

Among the many troubling and bizarre features of contemporary politics, the following apparent paradox can be found: Informationalisation has brought along enormous increases in the traceability of the doings and dealings of the powerful. But the disruptive power of the exposure of these activities to the public, today seems especially low. After information technology, the going about of those in power and their abuses, are increasingly documented, and the resulting records are increasingly susceptible to leakage to the public. Email is an obvious example. In the run-up to the last Iraq war, a message by an official of the National Security Agency (NSA), which requested ? aggressive surveillance ? of UN Security Council Members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, made its way to the newspapers.

Rehearsal of Memory 

About his CD-ROM production called ROM

The production of this interactive programme has been commissioned by Video Postive 1995 and the construction of the artwork is set to take place during January to April 1995.

Statement Against the Prosecution of Netzpolitik.org 

"The investigation against Netzpolitik.org for treason and their unknown sources is an attack against the free press. Charges of treason against journalists performing their essential work is a violation of the fifth article of the German constitution. We demand an end to the investigation into Netzpolitik.org and their unknown sources."

• infopolitics,
• info-activism,
• surveillance,
• censorship

The Zapatista Tactical FloodNet 

A collaborative, activist and conceptual art work of the net

• electronic disturbance,
• zapatista

Final Program: As If / Vox Populi / The Syrian Archive / The Society of Post-Control 

Tactical Media Connections public program, Amsterdam January 20 - 22, 2017.

As part of the Tactical Media Connections public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present, a series of public events take place in Amsterdam between January 20 and 22, 2017. The public program includes an exhibition at Framer Framed in the Tolhuistuin cultural centre, opening on Friday January 20; a Meme Wars Lab workshop on Friday January 20; a public debate at Eye Filmmuseum on Saturday January 21, and a one day conference (‘The Society of Post-Control’) again at the Tolhuistuin on Sunday January 22.

Please find below a brief program overview, followed by a detailed description of the different parts of the public program.

• tactical media,
• meme wars,
• tactical research,
• trickster

Utopian Promises-Net Realities 

The need for net criticism certainly is a matter of overwhelming urgency. While a number of critics have approached the new world of computerized communications with a healthy amount of skepticism, their message has been lost in the noise and spectacle of corporate hype-the unstoppable tidal wave of seduction has enveloped so many in its dynamic utopian beauty that little time for careful reflection is left. Indeed, a glimpse of a possibility for a better future may be contained in the new techno-apparatus, and perhaps it is best to acknowledge these possibilities here in the beginning, since Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) has no desire to take the position of the neoluddites who believe that the techno-apparatus should be rejected outright, if not destroyed. To be sure, computerized communications offer the possibility for the enhanced storage, retrieval, and exchange of information for those who have access to the necessary hardware, software, and technical skills. In turn, this increases the possibility for greater access to vital information, faster exchange of information, enhanced distribution of information, and cross cultural artistic and critical collaborations. The potential humanitarian benefits of electronic systems are undeniable; however, CAE questions whether the electronic apparatus is being used for these purposes in the representative case, much as we question the political policies which guide the net's development and accessibility.

• art,
• network cultures,
• net.activism,
• net criticism

Sarai Reader 08: Fear 

Modernity's great promise - the freedom from fear, now lies in ruins. One can argue that this vision was always compromised - modernity (especially in the form that emerged in the West, under Capitalism) always hid its own fears, and hid from its own fears - the fear of epidemics, of urban panic, of the homeless multitude and of criminal activity. This led to a drive for transparency: for separating the civic from the criminal, the civilised and the barbaric peoples, the human from the non human, life from the machine.

• theory,
• social justice,
• fear

The Flexible Personality - Notes 

Notes for Brain Holmes' text: The Flexible Personality: For a New Cultural Critique.

About WikiLeaks 

Introduction to WikiLeaks, published on the about page of the wikileaks.org website, August 7, 2010.

WikiLeaks is a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public. Since July 2007, we have worked across the globe to obtain, publish and defend such materials, and, also, to fight in the legal and political spheres for the broader principles on which our work is based: the integrity of our common historical record and the rights of all peoples to create new history.

• wikileaks

The dark side of Camping 

Camping can be so nice. Crawling out of dewy plastic in the early morning, with a pinch of sleep still in your eyes, braving the unbearably hot sun, yet invigorated and ready to take on the day with as much indifference as possible to the ongoing struggle with nature. Surely everybody knows that the secret of success is to fight the laws of petty bourgeois civilisation with minimal equipment and therefore gain a flexibility that is capable of suspending the otherwise ruling power relations for a clearly defined amount of time.

• campaign,
• activism,
• migration,
• no border,
• borders,
• tactical camping

Stop Streaming and Listen: Fight Post-Governmental-Content-Control Streaming Media breaks UK law - find out why nobody wants to care... 

Streaming media deliver video or audio content over the web. But streaming media are very different from the web. In the UK such formats force BT to breach the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Act. To the grass-roots activist web-critics, this might be the right (and most likely only) time to pull the plug and prune the web. Alternatively we could happily stream on and witness how independent media production will be pushed to the periphery of the new order. Here is one of many scenarios...

• radio,
• streaming media,
• independent media