The existing use of media so far has been determined by the local, decentralized nature of the campaign. Local groups are adapting, editing and redesigning existing material like research results, lines of argumentation and logos, photos and slogans. The educational material, used by trade unions, schools and churches is very specific and "customized", and therefore cannot be used in campaigns which target the general public.
ReadThis is a short text [1] which appears in "Public Netbase: Non Stop Future. New Practices in Art and Media" edited by the fine people at the New Media Center_kuda.org, in cooperation with World-Information Institute / t0. This book was presented at Transmediale 2009 in Berlin.
http://nonstop-future.org
Tactical media as a practice has a long history and, it seems save to predict, an even longer future. Yet its existence as a distinct concept around which something of a social movement, or more precisely, a self- aware network of people and projects would coalesce has been relatively short lived, largely confined to the internet's first decade as a mass medium (1995-2005).
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.
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.
"Contemporary civilization differs in one particularly distinctive feature from those which preceded it: speed. The change has come about within a generation," noted the historian Marc Bloch, writing in the nineteen-thirties. This situation brings in its wake a second feature: the accident. The progressive spread of catastrophic events do not just affect current reality, but produce anxiety and anguish for coming generations.
ReadIn tactical media circles the Amsterdam media landscape has long been treated as a Utopian model because of her free radios, open tv-channels and digital public spaces. The last few years this media paradise is under threat. How did this come about? And is it still possible to reverse this development? This is the theme of the Amsterdam Media Debate. Nina Meilof (The Digital City - DDS), Andreas Baader and Josephine (Radio Patapoe), Frank (Radio de Vrije Keyser) and media-activists Patrice Riemens, Geert Lovink and Menno Grootveld prepared the grounds for the discussion.
The aim of the Amsterdam Media Debate during The Next 5 Minutes is to explain to the international participants that big changes are underway here. They may perhaps learn something from our experiences, but we would also like to try and find out what the differences are with other big cities and with other countries. What are these big changes and how is the situation at the present moment?
Cultural Center REX, Jevrejska 16, Belgrade, Serbia
Friday, 31st of August, 7pm, 2012
Participants: Corina L. Apostol, Maja Ciric, Pavle Cosic / KORNET,
Nikola Radic Lucati, Vladan Jeremic, Selman Trtovac, Vesna Milosavljevic
/ SEEcult.org, Stefan Tiron, Noa Treister, The Bureau of Melodramatic
Research, Marica Radojcic, Rena Rädle.
The 3rd ArtLeaks Working Assembly will be facilitated by Corina Apostol, The
Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Stefan Tiron and Vladan Jeremic.
From the sit-ins on the Kasbah Square in Tunis to the tents on
Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, from the encampments on the Puerta del
Sol in Madrid to Syntagma Square in Athens, from the Wisconsin Uprising
to Occupy LA, from Tahrir Square in Cairo to Liberty Plaza in New York -
there is an incredible movement of occupations growing in this year of
2011.
Please join Not An Alternative, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, and
Upgrade NY! this Thursday, June 10 for the opening of Re:Group: Beyond
Models of Consensus, an exhibition which examines models of
participation and participation as a model in art and activism.
Re:Group proposes that with participation now a dominant paradigm,
structuring social interaction, art, activism, the architecture of the
city, the internet, and the economy, we are all integrated into
participatory structures whether we want to be or not. The exhibition
showcases work that subverts existing systems or envisions new
alternatives to the ways in which individuals can take part, or choose
not to take part, in social and cultural life.
Ibraaz Publishing and I.B. Tauris are pleased to announce the book launch of Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East, edited by Anthony Downey.
ReadOctober 2011.
The fight opposing financial dictatorship is erupting. The so-called 'financial markets' and their cynical services are destroying the very foundations of social civilization.
The idea for the Art of Campaigning topic originates from the works of
the McLibel group [www.mcspotlight.org]. Their type of net.campaign
questions previous forms of activism, which was focused on the mass
media and their ability to influence public opinion, by staging direct
action (targeted at known media makers). Big NGO's such as Greenpeace
have built up experiences with this model for decades. The scenarios
they use have not changed much since the seventies. There is the usual
PR material: official reports, books, folders, flyers, magazine and
original video footage, shot on location. Campaigns are being planned
long in advance. The way of working does not differ much from a
campaign to launch a new product. Professionalism has taken over the
task of volunteers. Their role is being reduced to that of a local
support group, doing the actual grass roots work with the population.
Conceptual Overview
The products we purchase are the inventory of our lives. To chain
stores, this inventory is cataloged through the Universal Product
Locator symbol (UPC). The UPC symbol is known as a barcode. Barcodes
are now found everywhere in our world, extending outside of product
inventory into our comic books, our science fiction, our films, and
even our tattoos. These codes represent the fears of literally becoming
numbers or becoming digital that are in many of us. These are not fears
we wish to dismiss. The RE-CODE.COM project brings together the
tactical media actions of the Carbon Defense League and the video and
performance hijacks of Conglomco in a way that takes online action
outside of the box for real world instigation. Looking at the heavy
reliance on digital systems in chain stores utilizing the UPC barcode
system, we see a problem or a virus in the system. The virus is the
human. We are the nightmare of the digital to some extent. We are the
squeaky wheel.
Software has, over the last few years, increasingly come into view as a cultural technique whose social and political impact ought to be studied carefully. To the extent that social processes rely on software for their execution - from systems of e-government and net-based education, online banking and shopping, to the organisation of social groups and movements -, it is necessary to understand the procedural specificities of the computer programmes employed, and the cultural and political 'rules' coded into them.
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.
ReadNotes for Brain Holmes' text: The Flexible Personality: For a New Cultural Critique.
ReadThe events of the century's turn, from Seattle to New York, have shown that a sweeping critique of capitalist globalization is possible, and urgently necessary-before the level of violence in the world dramatically increases. The beginnings of such a critique exist, with the renewal of "unorthodox" economics. [1] But now one can look further, toward a critique of contemporary capitalist culture.
ReadTo the Arts, Citizens: it's a fantastic title. Hearing it, anyone who's been involved in political activism will probably think: "At last we're getting somewhere." The idea that art is part of citizenship, that there is a democratic exercise of the arts within the framework of public life, and that this appeal to the citizen-artist can be supported by a major cultural institution, is about as progressive as you could get today. Especially since this is a direct echo of the French republican tradition, where the phrase, Aux armes citoyens, is nothing less than a call to rise up and institute democracy against tyranny ? in other words, a call to revolution. The Portuguese know the meaning of this revolutionary call to arms from decisive historical events that are still in living memory. So one can imagine that the organizers of this exhibition did not take their title lightly.
ReadStreaming 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...