Tactical Media

Critical Art Ensemble, Free Range Grain

Free Range Grain was a live, performative action that used basic molecular biology techniques to test for genetically modified (GM) ingrediants in the global food supply system and people's home pantries. Members of the public brought us foods that they found suspect for whatever reason, and we tested them over a 72-hour period to see if their suspicions were justified.

A Public Misery Message: A Temporary Monument to Global Economic Inequality

Lotto ticket to try and win a ride to the top of the economic inequality graph.

For A Temporary Monument to Global Economic Inequality CAE transformed statistical data on global economic inequality into an embodied spatial experience. Using a helicopter, participants were lifted to hover at a height that allowed them to visualize the economic separation of the top 1% from the bottom 99%. The wealth of 99 percent of individuals in the global population could be proportionately represented within fifteen meters, while the helicopter could lift people to the height of 225 meters (740 feet) that represented the wealth of individuals who make up the 1 percent. To take a ride in the helicopter cost 200 euros or you could buy a lotto ticket with a 1/50 chance of winning a ride for one coin of any currency.


A bit of a definition of Tactical Media from the downloadable book Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media by Critical Art Ensemble:


First, tactical media is a form of digital interventionism. By “digital” CAE means that tactical media is about copying, re- combining, and re-presenting, and not that it can only be done with digital technology.  

It challenges the existing semiotic regime by replicating and redeploying it in a manner that offers participants in the projects a new way of seeing, understanding, and (in the best-case scenario) interacting with a given system. The already given and the unsaid are the material of a tactical media event. As Stanley Aronowitz says about the postmodern thinker: “We deconstruct the ‘givenness’ to show the cracks that sutures have patched, to demonstrate that what is taken as privileged discourse is merely a construction that conceals power and self-interest.” Much the same can be said about the tactical media practitioner, the difference being that rather than just doing critical reading and theorizing, practitioners go on to develop participatory events that demonstrate the critique through an experiential process. 
 

The tactical media practitioner uses any media necessary to meet the demands of the situation. While practitioners may have expertise in a given medium, they do not limit their ventures to the exclusive use of one medium. Whatever media provide the best means for communication and participation in a given situation are the ones that they will use. Specialization does not predetermine action. This is partly why tactical media lends itself to collective efforts, as there is always a need for a differentiated skill base that is best developed through collaboration. 

In conjunction, tactical media practitioners sup- port and value amateur practice—both their own and that of others. Amateurs have the ability to see through the dominant paradigms, are freer to recombine elements of paradigms thought long dead, and can apply everyday life experience to their deliberations. Most important, however, amateurs are not invested in institutionalized systems of knowledge production and policy construction, and hence do not have irresistible forces guiding the

outcome of their process such as maintaining a place in the funding hierarchy, or maintaining prestige- capital. 

The Institute for Applied Autonomy 

IAA Graffiti Writer

IAA Street Writer Video

IAA Text Mob Video 

Other Tactical Media Practitioners:

The Yes Men

Eva & Franco Mattes

Electronic Disturbance Theater

Krzysztof Wodiczko  

Center for Genomic Gastronomy