Roots
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 workâbe 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.
As for media-related roots, tactical media partly stem from the alternative media created by the counterculture of the 1960s. However, due do their temporary nature, tactical media do not tend to construct alternative media outlets, but rather appropriate existing media channels and technology to transform their usage and/or the popular understanding of their messages. In this respect, tactical media are more akin to other temporary forms of cultural and political intervention, such as guerrilla communication and culture jamming.
Read more about this topic: Tactical Media
Famous quotes containing the word roots:
“There is nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest us,—kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron show,—the roots of all things are in man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
““Jim,” she said earnestly, “if I was put down there in the middle of the night, I could find my way all over that little town; and along the river to the next town, where my grandmother lived. My feet remember all the little paths through the woods, and where the big roots stick out to trip you. I ain’t never forgot my own country.””
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)