Molecular invasion and other tactical media projects, Critical Art Ensemble (2003)

Biography: 

Critical Art Ensemble je kolektive koji čine pet umetnika različite specijalizacije. kolektiv je posvećen istraživanju intersekcije između umetnosti, tehnologije, radikalne politike i kritičke teorije. http://www.critical-art.net

Beatrize da Costa, Steve Kurtz
Summary: 

The idea of ​​tactical media and what it means is our topic of interest right from the start. It is important to say that we were quite irritated by the idea of ​​"monuments" of culture in terms of various types of production from the cultural sphere. It was about something that the artist makes - a great work that greatly influences the course of art history, creates space for individuals, and builds a bunker of meanings that remain permanent. The critical art group was not really interested in such things. We were interested in what is immediate and transient. Maybe the meaning we create will fade over time. We do not create works to last, nor to represent universal claims. We rejected that and instead said: "What we are interested in concerns specific places at a specific time, we are also interested in how the audience understands us. By distorting the traditional art model, by which an artist inspires you, you express that inspiration, then the amount is in public so that people can see. We have found the opposite by wondering what is in the outside world and how we react in the social context. We will present some projects to illustrate what we mean by "tactical", as opposed to the monumental ideal of the strategic. "Giving a New Name" (Renaming Project) was performed in Victoria Square in Adelaide, Australia, and the situation we found there was as follows: Aboriginal people, the locals, had great difficulty trying to penetrate the public sphere. in the project was Central Park in the city, which was a secret land for them, because there was no place for them. In the park, there is a square called Victoria Square, which houses a huge monument to Queen Victoria, the world's greatest colonizer. Needless to say, how irritating it was, there was a feeling that another version of history should be told in the same place. and Western cultures, because our understanding of activism meant direct and fast action, and their understanding of penetrating the public plane meant slow action. These were two culturally completely different conceptions of time. The local population asked the city council to give the square a double name. Another name would be Aboriginal "Tamdaniunnga", meaning " there, where red kangaroos dream". The panel neither rejected nor agreed to that proposal. Needed by this situation, tribal elders, local activists and a multitude of stakeholders decided to take concrete action to name the square. In cooperation with the company that made the inscriptions called the city of Adelaide, inscriptions were made called the square - "Tamdaniunnga". That is when the Art Coalition for Public Art (PAAC) was formed. The group replaced 10 of the 20 inscriptions called Victoria Square and thus gave the square a double name. It was a way to show the activity that people can use in the material conditions they live in. They no longer had to live with the feeling that passive resistance was the only solution. It only took a few days. However, it is interesting that six weeks after that, the city council gave in and now the square has a double name. It was a concrete intervention that went public and that changed the previous situation - a structure that had been present for centuries. This is very close to the essence of tactical media. By this, we do not mean the obligatory creation of a material object, but processes in a situation where new ways of understanding and new ideas can be realized. In this way, other possibilities become feasible...