Center for Tactical Magic
From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times
The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of "Tactical Magic." The Center for Tactical Magic formed as an organization dedicated to the coalescence of art, technology, magic, and positive social change. Working across barriers of art, design, architecture, and community service, the CTM’s collaborations have also involved aquatic biologists, members of the Black Panthers, radical ecologists, and the American Red Cross to name a few.
According to the Center for Tactical Magic, Tactical Magic is:
A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. At the CTM we are committed to achieving the Great Work of Tactical Magic through community-based projects, daily interdiction, and the activation of latent energies toward positive social transformation.
Contents |
Projects
Bechtel Predator Drones
The Center for Tactical Magic and Trevor Paglen's Bechtel Predator Drones are remote controlled vehicles designed to distribute educational materials pertaining to the Bechtel Corporation's activities as a military contractor. The Center for Tactical Magic claims that Bechtel was responsible for building chemical production facilities in Iraq prior to the second U.S. invasion of Iraq and has been listed among 24 U.S. companies that supplied Iraq with weapons and/or weapon-making capabilities during the 1980's.
According to the Center for Tactical Magic:
"Bechtel Predator Drones" successfully targeted the Bechtel* corporate headquarters in San Francisco where employees and pedestrians alike experienced first-hand the effects of leafletting and unmanned predator drones. The combined forces of Trevor Paglen and the Center for Tactical Magic led to the development and deployment of two remote-controlled drones, each of which distributed three payloads: 1) short pamphlets detailing Bechtel's history of unsavory activities; 2) CD-ROMs designed to assist workers in installing viruses on their workstations; and 3) copies of the CIA Sabotage Manual - a small, government-authored comic book containing a series of useful sabotage techniques, the majority of which can be done in the workplace with simple objects. Over the course of the operation, the drones' pilots met resistance both by Bechtel security forces and by an undercover, camera-toting cop. Despite these minor imperial entanglements, the mission was successful.
See also:
The Tactical Ice Cream Unit
The Center for Tactical Magic's Tactical Ice Cream Unit is a mobile surveillance and information station disguised as an ice cream truck. It is used to distribute educational materials about social and environmental issues and can also be used to monitor dangerous activities in the community including police brutality and corporate dumping.
According to the Center for Tactical Magic:
The Tactical Ice Cream Unit (TICU) rolls through the city in an act of intervention that replaces cold stares with frosty treats and nourishing knowledge. Combining a number of successful activist strategies (Food-Not-Bombs, Copwatch, Indymedia, infoshops, etc) into one mega-mobile, the TICU is the Voltron-like alter-ego of the cops' mobile command center. Although the TICU appears to be a mild-mannered vending vehicle, it harbors a host of high-tech surveillance devices including a 12-camera video surveillance system, acoustic amplifiers, GPS, satellite internet, a media transmission studio capable of disseminating live audio/video, and of course, ice cream. With every free ice cream handed out, the sweet-toothed citizenry also receives printed information developed by local progressive groups. Thus, the TICU serves as a mobile nexus for community activities while providing frosty treats and food-for-thought.
See also:
- Center for Tactical Magic: Tactical Ice Cream Unit
- Current: Tactical Ice Cream Unit (Video) (02:59)
- We Make Money Not Art: The Tactical Ice Cream Unit
