Tactical media

Tactical media is a term coined in 1996, to denote a form of media activism that privileges temporary, hit-and-run interventions in the media sphere over the creation of permanent and alternative media outlets. Tactical media describes interventionist media art practices that engage and critique the dominant political and economic order. They were first popularized in Europe and the United States by media theorists and practitioners such as David Garcia, Geert Lovink, Joanne Richardson, and the Critical Art Ensemble. Since then, it has been used to describe the practices of a vast array of art and activist groups such as RTMark, The Yes Men, Electronic Disturbance Theater, Carbon Defense League, Institute for Applied Autonomy, 0100101110101101.ORG, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Ubermorgen, The Illuminator, Irrational, subRosa, and I/O/D, among others.

Although tactical media borrows from a number of artistic and political movements, it has been suggested that much of its techniques are rooted in the Situationist idea of detournement, that is, in the critical appropriation and transformation of a preexisting work—be it an artwork, a commercial billboard, or a political campaign. In the case of tactical media, it is the media themselves to be the subject of a detournement.

The dada movement has also been credited as an influence on tactical media, the two often used within activist campaigns. Much like it, tactical media often aims to do the opposite of the media it penetrates: it shocks and reveals an antithesis.

Tactical media also draws from surrealism, borrowing the idea that a "truer" experience than the present one is present. Much like surrealism, tactical media also criticizes social, political and cultural elements of a given society through its domain's techniques.

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