Tactical Media

by Rita Raley
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 2009
196 pp. Trade, $58.50; paper. $19.50
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5150-4; 978-0-8166-5151-1.

Reviewed by Geoff Cox
University of Plymouth

gcox@plymouth.c.uk

The term, 'Tactical Media,' derives from independent media activism and radical pragmatism. A little out of fashion, it draws on methods informed by network and information theory, as well as radical re-uses or reverse engineering of mass culture (and to some extent is a further elaboration of Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, and Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z., in the 1980s). Emerging in the 1990s, it refers to contemporary forms of dissent somewhere between creative experimentation and a reflexive engagement with social change, recognizing shifting identifications, temporary alliances and strategic affinities according to the requirements of context. It is variously defined but particularly important are the collaborative writings of Geert Lovink: 'The ABC of Tactical Media', 1997 (with David Garcia), and 'New Rules for the New Actonomy', 2001 (with Florian Schneider); and the Next Five Minutes conferences, held in Amsterdam from 1993.

Against the extensive backdrop of references and critiques of neo-liberal ideology in general, the book Tactical Media draws together many of the key examples of interventionist practice as case studies and continues discussion around the currency for the term. It is structured in four chapters: ‘Introduction: Tactical Media as Virtuosic Performance’, ‘1. Border Hacks: Electronic Civil Disobedience and the Politics of Immigration’, ‘2. Virtual War: Information Visualization and Persuasive Gaming’, and ‘3. Speculative Capital: Black Shoals and the Visualizing of Finance.’

What makes the book perhaps distinctive is its focus on ‘virtuosity’, drawing on Paolo Virno's work (such as in Grammar of the Multitude, 2004). Without this connection, the book would seem to operate more like a reference book for some of the most interesting media activist practices over recent years (including Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Disturbance Theatre, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Carbon Defense League, The Yes Men, Etoy and Ubermorgen, amongst others). Although by no means a mere catalogue of works, it is a thoroughly researched, and there are examples of key players broadly associated with ‘activism, hacktivism, artivism’, but in general the analysis seems less sharp. For instance, despite the stated importance of the concept, the references to virtuosity are not entered into in depth. Although there is passing reference to how Virno draws on Hannah Arendt’s work to articulate virtuosity through performance – making the connection between performance and politics (p. 29) – there is scant detail here. Missing are the complex connections and prehistory, not least in Virno’s earlier work (such as his essay ‘Virtuosity and Revolution’, in Radical Thought in Italy, 1996) as well as that both Virno and Arendt are making explicit reference to Aristotle. Thus the closing statement – that ‘Tactical media contests the future terrain of the political, but it does so via virtuosic performances deployed and experienced in the present’ (p. 151) – remains rather unsubstantiated.

Nevertheless, and importantly, the issue of currency is apposite in as much as tactics are developed as a direct response to processes of recuperation. All this makes it an important subject for ongoing discussion and publication, even if through publication there is a running paradox of ‘bringing tactics into visibility, in making stable that which maintains a kind of power by being unstable?’ (p.13). Indeed, Raley quotes Lovink from 2005 on this key concern:

‘There is a paradox at work here. Disruptive as their actions may often be, tactical media corroborate the temporal mode of post-Fordist capital: short-termism… This is why tactical media are treated with a kind of benign tolerance. […] The ideal is to be little more than a temporary glitch, a brief instance of noise or interference. Tactical media set themselves up for exploitation in the same manner that “modders” do in the game industry: both dispense with their knowledge of loop holes in the system for free. They point out the problem, and then run away. Capital is delighted, and thanks the tactical media outfit or nerd-modder for the home improvement.’ (p. 28)

According to the book, whether tactical media works or not is the wrong question to ask. Instead it is claimed that what should be asked is how it strengthens social relations and to what extent its activities are virtuosic. The various positions call out for ongoing reappraisal of recuperative processes and interventionist responses (what elsewhere would be referred to as the ‘cycles of struggle’). Evidently, both the tactics of media activism, and books about it, are never perfect and always in process.