[artinfo] Eric Kluitenberg, Legacies of Tactical Media

[Geert Lovink]

http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/network-notebooks/no-5-legacies-of-tactical-media/

Tactical Media employ the 'tactics of the weak' 
to operate on the terrain of strategic power by 
means of 'any media necessary'. Once the rather 
exclusive practice of politically engaged artists 
and activists, the tactical appropriations of 
media tools and distribution infrastructures by 
the disenfranchised and the disgruntled have 
moved from the margins to centre stage. The 
explosive growth of mass participation in 
self-mediation incountless blogs, video sharing 
platforms, micro-blog ging, social networking has 
created an unprecedented complexity in the 
info-sphere.

While this frenzy of media activity has been 
heralded as the catalyst of the new 
democratisation movements in North-Africa and the 
Middle-East, the anti-austerity/precarity 
movements in Southern Europe and the UK, and the 
recent #occupy movements in the US and Northern 
Europe, its increasingly intransparent complexity 
combined with the post 9/11 'crash of symbols' 
has thrown its political efÞcacy into question. 
The demise of WikiLeaks as the crown jewel of 
on-line whistle-blowing has added to a thoroughly 
opaque picture.

More than ever tactical media operators require 
effective instruments to the create tactical 
cartographies they need to navigate the hybrid 
realities they are immersed in. This notebook 
traces the legacies of tactical media to begin 
creating these hybrid cartographies.

about the author: Eric Kluitenberg is an 
independent theorist and writer on culture, media 
and technology. He is editor in chief of the 
Tactical Media Files - an on-line documentation 
resource for tactical media practices world-wide.

colophon: Network Notebooks editors: Geert Lovink 
and Sabine Niederer. Producer: Margreet Riphagen. 
Copy editing: Allison Guy. Design: Studio 
Léon&Loes, Rotterdam http://www.leon-loes.nl. 
Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, 
Amsterdam. Supported by: School for Communication 
and Design at the Amsterdam University of Applied 
Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Domein Media, 
Creatie en Informatie) and Stichting Democratie 
en Media..

Download the pdf here: networkcultures.org/_uploads/NN5_EricKluitenberg.pdf

If you want to receive free paper copies of this 
pamflet, lets say 10 or 20 for your Occupy scene 
of media activism class please write to 
books at networkcultures.org and mention a more or 
less reliable postal address. Please note: 
without a postal address it is difficult for us 
to send you copies!

Eric Kluitenberg, Legacies of Tactical Media - 
The Tactics of Occupation: From Tompkins Square 
to Tahrir, Network Notebooks 05, Institute of 
Network Cultures, Amsterdam, November 2011.


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