In-Between Media Conference Report

On the 9th and 10th of March 2023, the conference ‘In-Between Media: Hybrid Tactics in the Crisis Era’ on (hybrid) media tactics and togetherness in the field of art and activism, took place at SPUI25, Framer Framed, OT301, and online. In this conference report, you’ll find texts about each of the panels, roundtables, expert sessions, and workshops.

About the Conference

The Covid pandemic has catalyzed experimental approaches to hybrid cultural programming and togetherness, mixing online, offline, and everything in-between. How can we translate the lessons learned into ways of dealing with post-pandemic urgencies? Can we use hybrid tactics in response to violent displacement, physical impairments, and the war in Ukraine? What kind of tactical media can exist within these (new) digital spaces, and which potential for resistance do they have? Data and information used as a tool for power might not be new, but some of the strategies being looked at in this conference—hopefully—are.

During the first day of this conference, we had panels, talks, and round table conversations about precisely these questions. Starting off with TikTok as a research subject, we dived into its nature and qualities which lend themselves to a specific user attitude: both engaged and not, both within each other’s space, and not. Furthermore, we heard some hands-on testimonies about streaming resistance and looked at practices that both critique and use (mainstream) platforms as a method, or even a weapon. Ending the day, we tried to find strategies for dealing with the locative media tracking us everywhere, as well as the techno-capitalist narratives underlining our technologies. How can anarchists—or simply users—tactically misuse online platforms?

On the second day, we the audience were invited to join several workshops, expert sessions, and plenary talks. We discussed the possibilities of event reporting through a whole new workflow, how online visitors can impact a physical space, whether or not living archives are even truly ‘alive’, how to squat the cloud, setting up quick and dirty live streams, and what to think of when looking at the (hybrid) future.