tactical media
February 10, 2005
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what work really leads to anything lasting. Since the TAZ, the Critical Art Ensemble (in the U.S.) and any number of off shoots have established what can now be identified as a movement. A movement within contemporary art composed of collectives that embark on subversive or critical action using new communication technologies. Each of these collectives embrace to some extent CAE’s opening paragraph from the Electronic Disturbance (1994, Autonomedia):
The rules of cultural and political resistance have dramatically changed. The revolution in technology brought about by the rapid development of the computer and video has created a new geography of power relations in the first world that could only be imagined as little as twenty years ago: people reduced to data, surveillance occurs on a global scale, minds are melded to screenal reality and an authoritarian power emerges that thrives on absence. The new geography is a virtual geography, and the core of political and cultural resistance must assert itself in this electronic space.
Ok, so plenty of collaborators/colleagues and students of these practitioners have emerged over the last several years – Subrosa, Institute for Applied Autonomy, the Carbon Defense League, rtmark, the Yes Men, Conglomco and the list will hopefully continue to grow… These are creative people that band together to generate technically involved work that questions the society we function in/through. But over and over as I learn about their projects, the work executed and worst of all some of the egos generated, I wonder what the point is. Do these tactical media projects, prankster art, subversive acts really lead to anything other than a bi-line notice on NPR or even NBC and Fox? Do these works generate anything lasting. Some are satisfied in the idea that it causes reflection, a dialogue and perhaps that is enough, to get people thinking, cause people who would not otherwise talk to talk, but then what. Lately, more and more, I’ve been thinking that community based projects is where it’s at, community advocacy and projects that function in a small, regional space present the building blocks to create something that can turn into something adoptive, something that can cycle beyond a few months, that may last a generation or two. And then perhaps there’s already plenty of people doing this sort of work, so it’s appropriate that artists are engaging in collaborative action that may or may not have any consequence… Recently I attended a talk at NYU’s ITP program and one of the Conglomco guys who presented was so proud of their media coverage that it brought to question any of their work…