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.
ReadNext 5 Minutes: tactical media was a conference and exhibition that took
place at Amsterdam's Balie and Paradiso and at Rotterdam's
V2_Organisation from January 18th till January 21st 1996. The
conference was officially opened Thursday evening in Rotterdam with a
performance of the Critical Art Ensemble from Chicago about the matter
of media.
October 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 tactical media concept originates in post-1989 Europe when political change coincided with a wild phase in thinking about media technologies. It was the decade when both artists and activists started to discover digital technologies on a massive scale. Prizes dropped and expectations rose to incredible heights.
ReadIt 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."
Subject: [Interfund] - Create Your Own Solutions
Date: 03.12.98, 21:54:24
Interfund meeting {AT} Xchange Unlimited, Riga November 29, 1998.
During the Xchange Unlimited Baltic New Media Culture Festival in Riga a meeting was held to discuss the creation of the Interfund. The participants were Diana McCarty, Rasa Smite, Manu Luksch, Pit Schultz, Eric Kluitenberg, and others.
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.
On Friday April 3, 2009 we received the terribly sad news that our friend and ever inspiring colleague Oleg Kireev from Moscow had died, apparently as a result of suicide. We are left behind as friends and colleagues, bereaved and puzzled by this dramatic fact. Kireev was a prominent guest in some of the most important projects in the art / media / politics triangle, which we had the honour developing at De Balie. Kireev was a crucial figure in circles of free culture, media activism and the arts in Moscow, one of the most demanding environments for such activity one can think of.
ReadAt first glance the concept of "organised networks" appears oxymoronic. In technical terms, all networks are organised. There are founders, administrators, moderators and active members who all take up roles. Think also back to the early work on cybernetics and the "second order" cybernetics of Bateson and others. Networks consist of mobile relations whose arrangement at any particular time is shaped by the "constitutive outside" of feedback or noise.[1] The order of networks is made up of a continuum of relations governed by interests, passions, affects and pragmatic necessities of different actors. The network of relations is never static, but this is not to be mistaken for some kind of perpetual fluidity. Ephemerality is not a condition to celebrate for those wishing to function as political agents.
ReadBORDER="Ø" LOCATION="YES"
Collective Action After Networks
Part of the PML Books series. A collaboration between Mute and the Post-Media Lab.
Overview and manifesto of urban tv movements in Italy
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.
Written for Interstanding - Understanding INteractivity conference, Tallinn, Estonia November 23-25, 1995 - RFC Draft 1.1
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.
ReadFelix Stalder's extended essay, Digital Solidarity, responds to the wave of new forms of networked organisation emerging from and colliding with the global economic crisis of 2008. Across the globe, voluntary association, participatory decision-making and the sharing of resources, all widely adopted online, are being translated into new forms of social space.
ReadThese 0.
"What do I think of WikiLeaks? I think it would be a good idea!"
(after Mahatma Gandhi's famous quip on 'Western Civilisation')
In 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?
