The Change You Want To See is happy to host Aaron Gach, co-founder and Director of Operations at the Center for Tactical Magic. Expect an evening of Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Extra-Sensory Perception. Replete with projects, experiments, and anecdotes from the Tactical Magic trenches, this exposition will pull back the curtain on all types of contemporary magic, art, and politics.
Saturday, April 4, 7-9pm (free)
About the Center for Tactical Magic
Inspired by studies with a private investigator, a magician, and a ninja, 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. Their activities have sought to cultivate mirth and mischief in all four hemispheres, frequently infiltrating multiple spheres of influence -- social, cultural, and political -- with notions of responsible citizenship through creative action.
Center for Tactical Magic Projects
The CTA’s commitment to exploring disparate arts has led to the creation of numerous projects designed to analyze existing forces and activate latent energies. In a fusion of magic and surveillance equipment, the Smoky Hill River Outpost explored the relationship between security, information, and the mystification of technology. An amalgam of playhouse, prison, and pyramid, the multiple-level activity center combined high-tech surveillance (pinhole cameras, police scanners, electronic bugging units, and others) with more mysterious means of information acquisition (a crystal ball, a ouija board, astrology and more). In another application of surveillance devices, the Cricket-Activated Defense System (CADS) actively addresses illegal logging in California’s threatened redwood forests. Recombining trickle-down consumer technologies from the military-industrial complex, CADS targets the complex relationships between social, political, and natural ecosystems. And more recently, the Center for Tactical Magic launched the Tactical Ice Cream Unit, a mobile command center that has been touring towns, cities, and universities across the nation. Yet, the Tactical Ice Cream Unit is no mild-mannered vending vehicle. It harbors a host of high-tech surveillance devices, a roof-top stage, activist supplies, free wi-fi internet, a booming sound-system, a vast array of righteous, community-based propaganda, and of course, ice cream. Serving as a vehicle both literally and metaphorically, the TICU challenges the chilling effects of Homeland Security by merging food-for-thought, good humor, and cool treats to beat the heat!
Each of the aforementioned projects has been developed through an investigation of arcane relationships. Embracing magical thinking and unconventional uses of technology, the Center for Tactical Magic continues to mix elements of subculture, social politics, and revelry into a powerful potion.
