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Welcome to the Tactical Media Files, a 'living archive' for Tactical Media's present, past and future. More than an archive, TMF is an active news and documentation tool for the evolving practices of tactical media.



 
News
TMF Editors: Media tacticians are always on the look out for opportunities, operating on the terrain of strategic power without ever taking it over. Is Julian Assange crossing a boundary with the announcement of his TV talkshow to start in March (2012) with the Russian RT broadcast network? And where does it leave the participatory origins of WIKIleaks?

26-01-2012
An all day performance event at Duarte Square, 6th and Canal

On Saturday, December 17th, noon, Occupy Wall Street - with support from more than 1400 faith leaders, elders of the civil rights movement, prominent artists and community members - will gather at noon in Duarte Square, downtown Manhattan, for an all day performance event. This event is part of a call to re-occupy in the wake of the coordinated attacks and subsequent evictions of occupations across the nation and around the world.


15-12-2011
Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries.

It sounds like something out of Hollywood, but as of today, mass interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, including for 'political opponents' are a reality.


01-12-2011
#OCCUPYXMAS kicks off with Buy Nothing Day, on November 25 / 26.

Buy nothing day / a 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending / north america nov 25th, international nov 26th.
adbusters.org/bnd

25-11-2011
"You can't evict an idea whose time has come."

UPDATE: Call to Occupy


UPDATE #2: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement Persevere

Nov. 15: A massive police force is presently evicting Liberty Square, home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world.

The raid started just after 1:00am. Supporters and allies are mobilizing throughout the city, presently converging at Foley Square. Supporters are also planning public actions for the coming days, including occupation actions.


15-11-2011
Facebook Event | Twitter #N17 | Direct Action Resources

On Thursday November 17th, the two month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we call upon the 99% to participate in a national day of direct action and celebration!

15-11-2011
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.


04-10-2011
Over the past week, WikiLeaks has released 133,887 US diplomatic cables from around the world - more than half of the entire Cablegate material (251,287 cables). The new release was met with a sustained Denial of Service (DOS) attack during the first 36 hours. WikiLeaks had to rely on back-up servers for some hours. With supporters? help, WikiLeaks was able to bring in additional servers to stave off the attack.

31-08-2011
The 'stateless plug-in' is an extension for your browser that intervenes in digital territory, transforming the issue of stateless people into a multifaceted digital mapping of existing knowledge and information on the Internet.

28-08-2011
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.


21-08-2011
Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

This guide is not a road map or instruction manual. It's a match struck in the dark, a homemade multi-tool to help you carve out your own path through the ruins of the present, warmed by the stories and strategies of those who took Bertolt Brecht's words to heart: "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."


17-06-2011
Tuesday evening May 24  the theme issue (Im)Mobility of Open, Journal for Art and the Public Domain was presented at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, in combination with a screening of The Forgotten Space, a film by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, and a Q & A with filmmaker Noël Burch.
www.skor.nl/artefact-5492-en.html


28-05-2011
In thousands of pages of documents dating from 2002 to early 2009 and never seen before by members of the public or the media, the cases of the majority of the prisoners held at Guantanamo - 758 out of 779 in total -  are described in detail in memoranda from JTF-GTMO, the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, to US Southern Coand in Miami, Florida.
April 25, 2011


21-05-2011
LaSapienza University - Happening about education, welfare and new political practices - In the last two years we have participated and assisted with extraordinary movements that have fought for a quality education, for labor rights and new welfare against the austerity politics of the European Union. The wild demonstrations, pickets lines and strikes, the university occupations and the turmoil of the Mediterranean signal a generational revolt and the necessity of a new social pact that involves all those subjects that stand up for their rights and refuse to be blackmailed.

23-04-2011
Press Release, February 17, 2011:
Declaration drafted during 4 months by the Free/Libre Culture Forum.

Each year, the FCForum brings together key organisation and active voices in the sphere of free/libre culture. It responds to the need for an international arena in which to put together and coordinate a global framework for action, and to the need to defend and expand the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably.


19-04-2011
We are students, precarious, unemployed, a young generation that is too much skilled for a job... We are the 'generation without future' of a Europe in crisis that we don't like and we want to change. We are students of Rome and London who have taken the streets to reclaim a better future.

09-04-2011
On Saturday, the 12th of March 2011, a few minutes before six, the second Video Vortex reader was  presented to the audience of the sixth edition of the Video Vortex conference. Editors Geert Lovink and Rachel Somers Miles invited the contributors to the second volume, who were present en masse, to celebrate the launch of the book on stage.

24-03-2011
January 28, 2011 - Berlin - Today the book, An Open Web, is released for download and sale on the Web. Written in 5 days by 6 collaborators, An Open Web book sprint lead and Flossmanuals founder Adam Hyde said, "Zero to book in 5 days. It was an intensive process and loads of fun. The collaborators  met 9am Monday with no more text written than the title and 5 days later published the book."


22-02-2011
PRESS RELEASE

Chobi Mela VI to Open a Portal to a Restive World of Dreams

"All that we value, that we strive to uphold, all that gives us strength, has been made of dreams"

02-01-2011
Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

30-11-2010
Collaborative Futures is a collaboratively authored book about the theory and practice of collaboration, with a focus on social media and peer-production. The true nature of collaborative culture as a form of creative expression in the context of digital and network technologies has remained elusive, a buzzword often falling prey to corporate and ideological interests.


23-10-2010
"At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.

23-10-2010
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.



05-07-2010
April 19, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dow Throws a Dismal Party, Few Attend

Underattended "Run for Water" plagued by death, zombies, and dozens of "Dow spokesmen"; truth seems to run free


30-04-2010
November 12, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"SPECIAL" NEW YORK TIMES BLANKETS CITIES WITH MESSAGE OF HOPE AND CHANGE

Thousands of volunteers behind elaborate operation


04-08-2009
Dr. Steven Kurtz-the artist accused of bioterrorism in federal court-will make his first public appearance following the dismissal of his case

Thursday, May 29, 2008, 7PM
Eyebeam 540 W. 21st St. (btw 10th and 11th Aves.)
Free and open to the public


27-06-2008
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.

24-01-2008
Expert meeting (morning) and public presentations (afternoon) during the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF) 2007.
Organised by de Balie and Portsmouth University, ISEA and V2_ In collaboration with Virtual Platform.

Thursday 12 April
Expert meeting: 10.00 ? 13.00
Public presentations: 15.00 ? 18.00

24-01-2008
Featured

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.

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Webcasts Media Squares now available

International public seminar on the new forms of protest and their media, hosted by De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, on Friday September 30, 2011.

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Conte de Printemps
media

Short animation film in homage to the Syrian revolt.
by La Chaise Renversee
Realisation :
Dani Abo Louh et Mohamad Omran
October 2011 - France
Source:
http://vimeo.com/30585735

Play Video



Oct. 29 #RobinHood Global March

"We take from the rich and give to the poor.

Alright you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

We're living through a magical moment ... #OCCUPYWALLSTREET has catalyzed into an international insurgency for democracy ...  the mood at our assemblies is electric ... people who go there are drawn into a Gandhian spirit of camaraderie and hope for a new kind of future. Across the globe the 99% are marching! You have inspired more than you know."

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Social Media and the UK Riots: "Twitter Mobs", "Blackberry Mobs" and the Structural Violence of Neoliberalism

"One formula [...] can be that of the mob: gullible, fickle, herdlike, low in taste and habit. [...] If [...] our purpsoe is manipulation - the persuasion of a large number of people to act, feel, think, known in certain ways - the convenient formula will be that of the masses". - Raymond Williams

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#OCCUPYWALLSTREET

A shift in revolutionary tactics.

Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:

"The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people."
- Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain

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Signs of the Times: the Popular Literature of Tahrir

Protest Signs, Graffiti, and Street Art - a special issue of Shahadat

This issue takes as its focus the popular literature of the Egyptian Revolution. Drawing on protest signs, graffiti, and street art in Tahrir to read the culture of resistance particular to the Egyptian Revolution, the curators examine how protesters changed the political narrative through the use of images, memorials, and expressions of daily life.  Featuring examples from an extensive gallery of online images culled from the collections of several prominent Egyptian journalists and activists, the online piece is a visual tour of some of the creative production of Egypt's Revolution.  A collaborative curation project split between New York City and Cairo, this is ArteEast's first critical look at the cultural production related to recent political developments in the Middle East.
- Co-curators, Rayya El Zein & Alex Ortiz.

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Syria's cyber revolution
media

Interview with Rami Nakhle, a Syrian activist in exile in Beirut, who uses social networks to disseminate news from protests on the streets in Syria across the country.
(April 26, 2011 - '14:54)

TMF editors: This video has achieved a somewhat iconic status for depicting the internet dimension of the protests in Syria. The rising death-toll of the protests in Syria shows, however, that these 'cyber-protests' are not without material consequences on the ground. Neither are the protests primarily media-based, of course. They are first of all staged in the streets. Deeply troubling questions emerge about the dilemma's media-activists face promoting the image of a popular uprising with dramatic consequences (even more so keeping the descent into civil war in Libya in mind). We have linked this video with an excellent and rather controversial interview with Syrian political blogger Camille Otrakji, published by the Qifa Nabki blog.

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The 1988 Tompkins Square Police Riot - A Video Point of View

Saturday night on August 6th 1988 was stiflingly hot and humid. My apartment had no air conditioning and I was dying from the heat. Fortunately that night I was booked from midnight to 7 a.m. at Broadway Video at Broadway and 49th street to do special effects and editing on my video work entitled "Free Society".

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Unknown Quantity - Foreword

"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.

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10 tactics
media

10 tactics for turning information into action explores how rights advocates around the world have used information and digital technologies to create positive change. This 50 minute film documenting info-activism success stories is part of a larger package containing tools, tips and advice for info-activists.
Published by Tactical Technology Collective, November 2009.
www.tacticaltech.org

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Crossfire - An Installation by Shahidul Alam on Extra Judicial Killings

Drik Gallery, Dahka, March 22- 31, 2010.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) was set up on 26th March 2004 to curb corruption in Bangladesh. It consists of members of Bangladesh Police, Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy and Bangladesh Air Force. RAB has increasingly been criticized for the extra judicial killings and torture that have taken place of people in custody.

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Twelve Theses on WikiLeaks

Thesis 0

"What do I think of WikiLeaks? I think it would be a good idea!"
(after Mahatma Gandhi's famous quip on "Western Civilization")

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The Yes Men Fix The World
media

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks.
From New Orleans to India to New York City, armed with little more than cheap thrift-store suits, the Yes Men squeeze raucous comedy out of all the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet.
Brüno meets Michael Moore in this gut-busting wake-up call that proves a little imagination can go a long way towards vanquishing the Cult of Greed.
Who knew fixing the world could be so much fun?

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Collateral Murder
media

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.
www.collateralmurder.com

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To Shoot an Elephant
media

A documentary by Alberto Arce and Mohammad Rujailah.
Running time: 113"
Language: Original in english and arabic. Subtitles in english.
Country: Spain.
Production year: 2009
Distribution and press: Eguzki Bideoak Merced, 21
Directors: Alberto Arce/ Mohammad Rujailah
Script: Alberto Arce/ Miquel Martí Freixas
http://toshootanelephant.com

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Book Launch Critical Strategies in Art and Media

Following the September 2009 roundtable conference organised by the World Information Institute in New York, the follow-up publication will be presented on Thursday April 15 at the New School University. The book launch hosted by Ted Byfield, with remarks by Marco Deseriis (NYU), Steve Kurtz (Critical Art Ensemble), Andy Bichlbaum (The Yes Men), Ken Wark (NSU), and Trebor Scholz (NSU)
Wollman Hall, New School University, 65
West 11th St, 5th Floor, New York, NY.
6:30 - 8:15 pm

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Some points of departure

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

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