Tactical Media has the same dream to make our own media become powerful tools in changing socio-political circumstances. This ‘New Media’ activism challenged everyone to produce their own content to respond to political issues. Tactical Media is media that lives “on the street”. They do not only report events, but always participate in social changes. At this point, tactical media is separate from mainstream media that attempts to be always impartial.
Tactical Media usually use DIY media that can be created by everyone without necessarily being so ‘artistically’ (able to draw well, play a musical instrument, or take museum-quality photos). Someone without any formal training in film or animation techniques can create critical and engaging content from their own home office or bedroom.
From 1993 to 1999, Tactical Media existed as a kind of movement that is done by activists, video artists, camcorder artists, hackers, street rappers, and Nomadic media warriors. The name of ‘Tactical Media’ was mentioned in the Next 5 Minutes festival series (1993 – 2003). In the second and third editions of this festival, David Garcia and Geert Lovink wrote a short text entitled The ABC of Tactical Media, which gives a brief panorama of Tactical Media.
As Garcia and Lovink said, “Tactical Media are media of crisis, criticism, and opposition.” They use media to give social commentary. This media is allowing users to be producers, not simply consumers.
Tactical Media assumes that culture is an active set of practices rather than passive texts or artifacts. It shifts the focus on representations of itself to the ‘uses’ of representation, which is on how do we as consumers use the cultural products around us. This is called “tactically”. In this sense, consumption is considered as a set of tactics by which the weak make use of the strong.
Tactical Media is always becoming, performative, and pragmatic. There is no fixed concept of Tactical Media. It is always questioning their own premises and the channels they work with.
An example of Tactical Media Projects is video and installation art by Krzysztof Wodiczko, a Poland-born artist based in New York. In Monument, he amplifies refugees’ voices by occupying the Civil War monument in Madison Square Park, New York. He projects a video onto a statue of David Glasgow Farragut. The video contains the testimony of refugees about their experiences. The statue looks like it’s alive and telling stories. Wodiczko chose the monument because it is a public space and a site for public gatherings. The passerby can hear the refugees’ difficult and heartbreaking stories.
Wodiczko’s work is a tactical project that employs media and public sites around him to turn the weak into something stronger. His art challenges oppressors’ power by occupying the existing spaces.
This is the time of Tactical Media turn. Now, it’s your turn to make a better world with your own media.
Krzysztof Wodiczko: Monument for the Living | Art21 “Extended Play”
