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| What the hell is a TML? |
| a short description (David Garcia) |
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| To some the nature of TMLs remain a bit to sketchy so I have recently fleshed out our understanding of their nature and function. |
Tactical Media Labs
The idea of the Tactical Media Labs are one of the main pillars of the revised notion of N5M4. It was inspired in large degree by a wish to build on something called the "Hybrid Workspace" which took place about 5 years ago in the German big art event Dokumenta X. Here are the basic facts.
Hybrid Workspace
http://www.medialounge.net/lounge/workspace/ The Hybrid Workspace was developed by Pit Schultz and Geert Lovink. In some ways it was an attempt to create something with the qualities of the Nettime mailing list in an actual physical shared workspace. Basically the organizers, selected a number of discussion threads (or subject areas) from the list and asked those considered prime movers in those discussions to spend a week (or more) in the "Hybrid Workspace" and develop their ideas in different forms. I contributed in a small way as part of a group developing N5M3 and Tactical Media. Now the Hybrid Workspace itself was designed in the following way. It occupied a large and beautiful space on the edge of a Park (Dokumenta combines large museum spaces with site specific works throughout the town of Kassel).
Hybrid Workspace facilities consisted of the following:
Four very large panels. These wall size panels were on wheels meaning they could be moved about to configure the space in a variety of ways. In two of the panels video projectors were embedded and connected to video players. This meant that two of the walls could act as screens for the images projected from the other panels. The fact that the images could be of various sizes or even distorted by being placed at angles.
There were a number of raised platforms from which an audience could be addressed.
There were chairs for audience and or for participants
There was some basic production tools: video and audio recording and editing. Very basic nothing fancy. There was a computer, scanner, digital camera for some web authoring. Also slide projectors.
A Workshop with a Public Interface
The essence of the Hybrid Workspace was its curious relationship with the Dokumenta public. It was up to each group to decide how they handled this relationship. Each group came together to use the facilities of the workspace, to develop, accelerate and amplify their ideas. The fruits of this process could then (if those involved wished it) be presented to the Dokumenta public, who were always buzzing around the building hoping to gain access to the space and see what we were up to. Different groups had different feelings of responsibility about satisfying the Dokumenta art public. But in essence what you had was a workshop with a public interface. I found the pressure to put the developing ideas in the public domain was a useful means of focusing and sharpening our practice, especially as none of us were starting from zero. We were also aided by the nature of Dokumenta X which consisted of multiple explorations of the overlapping boarders between art and social or political innovation. This meant the Dokumenta audience were not expecting to see formalist art works in traditional media.
Tactical Media Labs
We would like to re-use and hopefully build on the formula of the "development workshop with a public interface" in which some basic production, publishing, presentation and exhibition facilities are used to create a supportive environment to develop a number of local re-interpretations of tactical media for our contemporary situation. Each host location would be free to interpret the TML model freely e.g. we can imagine TML lite with paper screens and a lounges, whatever.. But the main thing is to have something which has the focused intensity of the New York meeting but with some emphasis on objectives and outcomes. Outcomes in any media but also the "destination" outcome in helping to articulate thematic and programmatic ideas for The Next 5 Minutes 4. To achieve this, high quality moderation of each TML is important.
Web Authoring and Content Management System.
The one innovation which the TML model will add is the presence of a powerful web authoring tool. This will consist of a content management system which means that all forms of media content developed at the TMLs from text to sound and moving image can be placed on a shared website without the need for any of the contributors to know html or other webauthoring skills. It is this accumulating pool of knowledge in different forms that will be the basis of our transformation of N5M into a rolling research program for tactical media.
Development of Themes
We would like all of the editors to suggest one or more themes (close to their heart) that could be usefully developed. Together with ideas for people who could best represent these themes. In this way we are attempting to break open closed networks and develop new threads. Each local TML host should be free to determine the theme of their own TML but will no doubt find it useful to draw on the knowledge of the N5M editorial network as a whole. To facilitate this process we will create both specialist mailing lists and a website in which the relevant documents and contact details will be available. In Amsterdam our theme will be "One Year After" and look at the effects and transformations of the September 11th attacks in New York on tactical media practitioners in continental Europe. Although each TML host should be able to determine their own theme as we indicate in our opening position paper "Next 5 Minutes exists to reemphasize the media question... we explore the ways in which vital social and cultural issues are conveyed in a radically expanding media ecology..." So whatever theme is chosen should, to a degree, be understood within this context. We would also like TML hosts to define some objectives for the workshops and aim to come to some publishable conclusions (in whatever media). Our role in Amsterdam will be to provide online publishing tools, general communications support and where required coordination. Our goal is to make sure the material generated is accessible. An finally we (and we hope all the editors) will also be on the look out for new or developing patterns of practice which could benefit from greater support and visibility.
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