CAE: Framing Tactical Media 

Anyone involved with "tactical media" (TM) before its famed christening in 1996 at the Next Five Minutes had to know that naming this cultural/political tendency was going to have some very negative repercussions. The naming was the first step in doing what TM feared the most°Xclaiming cultural territory doomed to house haunting archives. Once given an official title, so many nasty processes could begin - most significantly, the construction of historical narratives. So many narratives already exist explaining this ephemeral, immediate, specific, and deterritorialized process of cultural production that seemed so urgent to so many radical subjects in the early 90s.

• art,
• tactical media

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

stateless plug-in 

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.

• migration,
• statelessness

Viridian Note 00029: The Interfund 

From: Bruce Sterling <bruces {AT} well.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:59:27 -0600 (CST)
Sender: owner-nettime-l {AT} basis.Desk.nl

Key concepts:  art movements, Internet, reputation economics, arts grants, Europe, Interfund

• politics,
• culture,
• art

Sex in the Age of Media 

The most important issue concerning the representation of sexuality in the media is, whether human dignity is being honored or not. Respect has many forms and those forms have many layers, and really there is no one else but ourselves to be the judge of the way we are being treated. Yet when and where basic human rights are not granted, the feeling of being deeply rooted in one's dignity (if not entirely unimaginable) is but a dream. This world is certainly not the best of all worlds and there is always a battle to be fought and battles will have to be fought again and again. Some so mean and savage that they can only be fought by those prepared to go till the end.

Contestational Robotics 

Keywords: robots / contestation / public space / expression management

• contestational robotics,
• public space,
• expression management

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

A Virtual World is Possible: From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes 

I.

We start with the current strategy debates of the so-called 'anti-globalisation movement', the biggest emerging political force for decades. In Part II we will look into strategies of critical new media culture in the post-speculative phase after dotcommania. Four phases of the global movement are becoming visible, all of which have distinct political, artistic and aesthetic qualities.

• politics,
• tactical media,
• infopolitics,
• net.activism,
• net criticism

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.

• accident

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

Corporate Counter Campaigns - Introduction 

Introducing the panel on Counter-strategies of Corporations against Campaigns Featuring: What are the modern-times strategies of present day companies? And: How can we respond to these?

This part of the introduction includes a short outline of the themes to be discussed at the forum. Being used are examples from the work of the panelists and cases they have been working on. Also included are exerpts from recent articles on the corporate world's reaction to social and environmental cam-paigns, illuminating the main themes from different points of view. References are included below, if you would like to receive four further texts on this subject, please let me know: evel@xs4all.nl

• campaign

The Information war 

Humanity has always invested heavily in any scheme that offers escape from the body. And why not? Material reality is such a mess. Some of the earliest "religious" artefacts, such as Neanderthal ochre burials, already suggest a belief in immortality. All modern (i.e. post-paleolithic) religions contain the "Gnostic trace" of distrust or even outright hostility to the body and the "created" world. Contemporary "primitive" tribes and even peasant-pagans have a concept of immortality and of going-outside-the-body (ec-stasy) without necessarily exhibiting any excessive body-hatred. The Gnostic Trace accumulates very gradually (like mercury poisoning) till eventually it turns pathological. Gnostic dualism exemplifies the extreme position of this disgust by shifting all value from body to "spirit". This idea characterizes what we call "civilization".

http://new . territories / appropriation . of . medical . discourse / art . com 

Nina Czegledy and Inke Arns presented the material described in the following text during the afternoon programme at V2_Organisation Rotterdam on Sunday, January 21st, 14.00 - 18.00 hrs.

On an imaginary journey in the territories of current medical practice and visual art, we observe the disintegration of former boundaries and discover the emergence of a new discourse involving new metaphors and new mythologies. In the course of this voyage we witness the crystallization of a process which began in the Enlightenment and today is linked together by electronic technologies. Mediated by television, and lately the Internet, the concepts involved here, have contributed to the construction of a simulated reality in both medical science and art which imprisons attention and redirects it from the subject of the activity reproduced.

The Watershed in Your Head - Mapping Anthropocene River Basins 

Translating the abstraction—and banalities—of the Anthropocene into readable cartography has resulted in many past attempts that often ended up reproducing those same qualities. But, as Brian Holmes asserts in this essay, we seem to have found ourselves in a moment where collaboration, engagement, and new forms of knowledge exchange are breaking that deadlock. Tracing his own involvement with artistic practices that both engage with and attempt to represent a “political ecology,” Holmes explains how the evolving, collaborative cartographic practice that brought the "Mississippi. An Anthropocene River map" into being simultaneously reveals and interrogates the power structures of Anthropocence society.

• cartography,
• activism,
• tactical research,
• climate,
• ecology,
• earth systems

Why We Protest: Freedom of Information 

'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' -Article 19, United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights

• infopolitics,
• info-activism,
• wikileaks,
• anonymous

The Need for Practice 

Exhibition, Bratislava, May 23 - June 22, 2014:

We are living in a prolonged period of economic, social, political and environmental crisis, in which the yearning for global, redeeming visions of the future has become increasingly frustrating, if not obsolete. However, it is not possible to live without expectations, without being able to imagine better conditions, a more positive state of affairs. And what if ? as many thinkers, cultural producers and various practitioners propose ? instead of heading towards fixed images of the future, we understand utopia, as a continuous process of becoming in which we participate? That is, instead of viewing the future as an end, a goal we should attain in an ever-delayed 'some day', we actualize it in the present, perform it in the everyday?

• art,
• diy media

Take The Square 

A 3-channel video installation by Oliver Ressler - 2012

The emergence of the movements of the squares and the Occupy movement in 2011 can be seen as a reaction by people who opposed and began to fight the massive increase in social inequality and the dismantling of democracy in times of global financial and economic crisis. The movements of the squares are non-hierarchical and reject representation; direct democracy shapes their activities. The occupation of public places serves as a catalyst to develop demonstrations, general strikes, meetings and working groups on different focal points. Successful site occupancies in one place often inspire occupations in other cities, without a linear relationship.

• politics,
• art,
• public space,
• street protest,
• tactical camping,
• occupy

WikiLeaks: The Spy Files 

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.

• infopolitics,
• info-activism,
• wikileaks

Tahrir Documents 

Initiated in March 2011, Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive and translate activist papers from the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath. Materials are collected from demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square and published in complete English translation alongside scans of the original documents. The project is not affiliated with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise.

• archive,
• middle east,
• street protest,
• occupy,
• tactical research