The Strange Persistence of Tactical Media.

Abstract

This edited volume offers an in-depth exploration of Dutch media art from 1985 onwards from many different perspectives. “Tactical Media are what happens when the cheap 'do it yourself' media, made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and expanded forms of distribution (from public access cable to the internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by or excluded from the wider culture.” (Garcia / Lovink, 1997) The quotation above is the opening paragraph of The ABC of Tactical Media which in some respects can be seen the founding text, the closest there is to a manifesto for Tactical Media.1 It was written to coincide with the second edition of the Next 5 Minutes, the media arts festival where Tactical Media was first identified and named. Reading it just over two decades later it is strange to see how many of the fundamental problems of technological exploitation and exclusion still resonate with today’s battles for digital sovereignty and have not diverged substantially from the formula described above.