Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit-part-4/32918/ en-us Design Observer Group 2012-04-02T04:43:17-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0
A concern that I had with this argument is that it seems to make cheap use of the connotations of resistance to sell actions that predominantly serve the interests of a privileged creative class; professionally trained and highly educated artist/designer types with access to the world of universities, galleries, panel discussions, magazines, books etc. In the process the kind of tangible actions that build towards significant social change continue to fall by the wayside.

Part of my grievance turns on the interpretation of tactics and strategy in Certeau. I read the passage a while ago and I haven't returned to it since, but I distinctly remember reading it with a different emphasis. Yes, the dominant engage in strategies to maintain power, and yes, the dominated engage in tactics to recuperate small but ephemeral comforts, but this seemed to me a description of the ordinary state of affairs within a power imbalance, not a suggestion for how things should be or always are.

I might very well be wrong in my interpretation of Certeau but either way I think there is a greater error in both valorising tactics without strategy (in some kind of false solidarity with the oppressed), and presuming that the dominated cannot or should not developing and executing a strategic campaign. For instance, thinkers as diverse as Sun Tzu, Che Guevara, Saul Alinsky, and contemporary theorists of grassroots social change all argued and/or demonstrated that tactics are necessary for strategies to be executed, or, in the context of a deliberate campaign, tactics are the building blocks of a strategy for change (http://www.thechangeagency.org/01_cms/details.asp?ID=57).

Therefore an art/design practice that fetishises the value of tactics without any critical conception of its overall role within an agenda for change is potentially as bad as an NGO or charity that parasitically lives off the existence of a problem rather than helping to facilitate the kind of political organising on the part of those effected to change the existing circumstances. It simply revels in ‘being tactical’ rather than making an serious attempt at a campaign for change.

In the context of the Occupy movement I think this translates into the difference between art/design work that is directly deployed in communications, outreach and promotion, direct action, site organisation and construction, alliance building, morale lifting, mood shaping, tactical defence, community bonding, and scenario planning; and art/design by professionals that seeks to use the idea and imagery of Occupy to produce work for publication in the traditional institutional contexts.

All this is to say that 1) far from maligning people for attempting to think in strategic terms, serious change actually requires more people to become adept at strategic thinking so that tactics lead to empowerment not just amelioration, and 2) artists/designers need to become more reflexive in their thinking so that their skills might be used to genuinely challenge power and redistribute privilege rather than reinforcing it though flashy but relatively risk free gestural acts.]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit-part-4/32918/#comments 2012-04-02T04:43:17-05:00
We've made the correction. Many thanks for the information!

Nancy]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit-part-4/32918/#comments 2012-03-31T17:14:22-05:00
One small correction - the Long Lines building, at Thomas Street, is a different building located a little further uptown than the Verizon building, located at Pearl Street.]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit-part-4/32918/#comments 2012-03-30T14:11:37-05:00
http://www.123occupy.com

Spring is coming! People are gathering!]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-interventionists-toolkit-part-4/32918/#comments 2012-03-27T15:45:56-05:00