Lucia Mare on Thu, 24 Oct 2002 04:30:41 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> Tactical Reality


[From a press release from www.selene.at about "Tactical Reality Dictionary"
www.autonomedia.org. Tuesday last week, a release event in a vienna club
www.flex.at was diguised as a supermario theme party, observed by state police
mixing uneasily with a crowd dancing to console tunes and exposed to ambigous
information. LM ]



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"All knowledge all discoveries belong to everybody. … 
All knowledge all discoveries belong to you by right. 
It is time to demand what belongs to you." 
William S. Burroughs 
  

With "Tactical Reality Dictionary" AUTONOMEDIA presents a manual containing
72 of the most important terms of cultural psychological politics "Cultural
Intelligence and Social Control". In the deceitful order of a dictionary we
find short essays about keywords ordered alphabetically, from the technical
terminology of "cyber-sociology": "Ambiguous Information", "Belief
Networks", "Consistent Illusions", etc. 

Researched by means of authentic intelligence sources, this unique document
presents shocking insights of the dark sides of psycho-civilation and sheds
a
completely new light on culture and the media. 

The individual - unable to select from the variety of information for a
long time - is helplessy exposed to propaganda and manipulation. The fear
driven desire for personal security and complete surveillance is contrary
to the idea of individual autonomy. The newest security technologies do not
only undermine privacy but even force their way into the most intimate
zones of the individual.  "A Leviathan-like scenario where man is forced to
abandon his right of self-determination against personal security. 

 But this dictionary can be used differently: "Konrad Becker like a modern
Bruno offers us a "Memory Palace" (a dictionary no less!) of knowledge
about consciousness and its control, whether by self or others, in the age
of the post-organic. For fucks sake don't leave home without it. "Hakim Bey
Following various attempts of intimidation against writers who critically
researched the background of 9/11, the Vienna publishing house "edition
selene" has agreed not to publish this manual in Austria.  The New York
publishing house "AUTONOMEDIA" has decided to publish Konrad Becker's
controversial book despite its subversive and terroristic potential. In
order to reduce the risk of civil or criminal litigation this book cannot
be sold in Austria. 

The "Tactical Reality Dictionary" will officially be distributed by
AUTONOMEDIA, New York. 

For security reasons the one and only presentation of Becker's book took
place in Vienna, exclusively for a small group of invited journalists. 

"Be afraid, be very afraid! Counterintelligence operator Konrad Becker
guides us through circles of Hell unimagined by Dante: the circles of
totalizing control, even unto consciousness-control, nerve-control,
face-control, soul-control.  This "Tactical Reality Dictionary" transforms
paranoiacs into visionaries and truth-tellers. But know that
counterintelligence agents are busy everywhere crafting hidden networks of
autonomous becoming and unsealing the sluice gates of revolt." subRosa 

"Be prepared to revise all that you once thought to be a series of unlikely
conspiracies propagated by fringe thinkers and kooky paranoids. This dictionary
transforms conspiracy into normative reality, and disbelief into the condition
of truth." Critical Art Ensemble 

"The realm of oppression, we now indicate by "media"-advertizing,
propaganda, mind control PR, spin management, et. - was analyzed by
Renaissance magi like Giordano Bruno as "magic". As this realm is englobed
by Cyberspace, technique itself becomes ever more occult. Whether we wish
to beat a tactical or even strategic retreat from this terminal Enclosure,
or else stand contend with it, we need to recover the "secrets" of hermetic
critic and hieroglyphic theory.  Konrad Becker like a modern Bruno offers
us a "Memory Palace" (a dictionary no less!) of knowledge about
consciousness and its control, whether by self or others, in the age of the
post-organic. For fucks sake don't leave home without it." Hakim Bey 

"An injunction to wrest lexical dominion from the powers that be, Konrad
Becker's "Tactical Reality Dictionary" is not so much the final word on
words as a prototype for (hyper)active reading in the age of consolidated
information control. Since Adbusters' 'Journal for the Mental Environment'
only ever did half the job, and one shrink was never enough to understand
our paranoid reality, why not take a leaf out of his book and write one of
your own?" Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Mute Magazine 

 www.selene.at 
 www.autonomedia.org
  
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