Tactical Media Files: a living archive of social-political action [4001]

"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.

To challenge dominant (strategic) structures in society, it was necessary develop new (tactical) means of producing and distributing media. Not a specialised task separate from the social movements, but a key activity around which social movements could coalesce. And of equal importance, the media environment characterised by a broadcast logic of geography was being supplemented with an environment characterised by a many-to-many logic of access.

Though much has changed these insights remain as valid today as they did in the early 1990s."

(Eric Kluitenberg and David Garcia)

Fig.1 Image from: Critical Art Ensemble, Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media, 2001. http://critical-art.net/books/digital