Search results for 'culture'

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Tactical Media Connections 

A public research trajectory tracing the legacies of Tactical Media and its connections to the present.

Under the working title 'Tactical Media Connections' the editors of the Tactical Media Files, David Garcia and Eric Kluitenberg have begun an extensive public research project that seeks to trace and develop the connections between the phenomenon of Tactical Media as it was identified in the early 1990s, not least through the renowned series of Next 5 Minutes festivals and conferences on Tactical Media (www.n5m.org - organised four times between 1993 and 2003), and current critical practices operating at the intersection of art, media, activism, technological experimentation and political contestation.

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make world paper 3 

Two years after 911 the global cup looks both half full and half empty. It's hard to be optimistic, yet there are plenty of reasons for it. With the Bush-Blair war machine running out of steam, the movement of movements shifts its attention to alternatives for the WTO, Security Council and similar post-democratic bodies. In the moral desert of the Iraq War the structuration of imaginary consent through the repetitive bombardment of the image began to show severe cracks in credibility. These discrepancies within the represented result in a heightened need for action. The Iraq war didn't fool any one and both sides are still reeling a little from the shock. While maintaining their anger, people moved on from protest to a collective search for that other, possible world. What might a global democracy look like? Would it be a system with representatives and 'rights,' or rather a dynamic set of events, without higher aims?

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"The Desire to be Wired" 


1. Desire.

I come from a social and cultural context which has its languagetaboos, and among them a strong one refers to the libido. Desire is,therefore, something rather personal, and connecting it to the publicsphere might personalize the approach in a naive sense I learned toavoid. But since the same topic has been voiced last year in thecalling papers of the Enschede Photo Biennial, we might be dealing herewith a common place, therefore with a language defensive reflex, andthis is something useful to talk about.

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    Media Without an Audience 

    Presence in the mediated environment of digital networks is probably one of the most complex phenomena of the new types of social interaction that have emerged in these environments. In the current phase of radical deployment (or penetration) of the Internet, various attempts are being made to come to terms with the social dynamics of networked communication spaces. It seems that traditional media theory is not able to contextualise these social dynamics, as it remains stuck on a meta-level discourse of media and power structures (Virilio), hyperreality (Baudrillard), or on a retrograde analysis of media structures deeply rooted in the functionality and structural characteristics of broadcast media (McLuhan).

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    Constructing the Digital Commons 

    March 2003

    Democracy can be understood in two notably distinct ways. In the institutional view democracy is understood as the interplay of institutional actors that represent 'the people' and are held accountable through the plebiscite; public votes, polls and occasionally referenda. The second view on democracy is radically different in that it sees the extent to which people can freely assemble, discuss and share ideas about vital social issues, organise themselves around these issues, and can freely voice their opinions in public fora, as a measure for just how democratic a given society is.

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    Out now: Art Leaks Gazette 3: Artists Against Precarity and Violence 

    Resistance Strategies, Unionizing, and Coalition Building in a Time of Global Conflict and Contradiction.

    This third issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette brings together art workers dealing with these urgent questions about models of organizations, unionizing, and strategies of resistance, and helping us to illuminate new ways of production and coalition building in international and local environments.

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    It's the Political Economy, Stupid - The Global Financial Crisis in Art and Theory 

    Book presentations:

    Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 7:00 p.m.
    Depot, Vienna
    Oliver Ressler in conversation with Luisa Ziaja (held in German)
    An event in cooperation with Open Systems - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte, Vienna

    Friday, 8 March 2013, 7:30 p.m.
    Home Workspace, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut
    Book signing at 7:30pm and presentation at 8pm by Gregory Sholette

    Thursday, 25 April 2013, 6:30 p.m.
    Austrian Cultural Forum, New York
    Book presentation with Gregory Sholette, Oliver Ressler and guests

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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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    Dawn of the Organised Networks 

    At 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.

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    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.

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    A context for collecting the new media 

    At the turning of the year 1992 I received the program and manifesto for the Next 5 Minutes Conference in Paradiso. As professional collector of documents by and about social movements for the International Institute of Social History, the list of videos to be shown caught my attention immediately. This was an excellent opportunity to realize something for which I had been trying already for some time, to make an international sample collection of products from the movement of new independent video makers.

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    Absorption and Exposure 

    I am interested in a certain sense of wanting to be "in" something: to participate in it, to connect with it, to synchronize with it, to be caught up with it, rather than to visually possess it. The desire to be attuned to something that is happening, or that might happen at any moment -- not necessarily as a conscious thought, but as a vaguely felt expectation. The desire to move toward something that is (or might be) happening, in order to absorb its force, touch it, taste it, surrender to it -- rather than simply to observe it.

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    Tactical Media After 9-11 

    It 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."

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