To make a link to the last weeks discussion of on the deceptive nature of images, De Certeau suggested that the analysis of images broadcast by Television (representation) and of the time spent watching television should be complemented by a study of what the cultural consumer �makes� or �does� during this time and with these images.

Television and other systems that are imposed on the consumers have a very dictating nature, because the consumer cannot talk back, or do anything to resist this information flow.

The increasing expansion of these systems no longer leaves �consumers� any place in which they can indicate what they make or do with the products of these systems.

Consumption itself is another production system. It does not manifest itself through its own images, its own products, but rather through ways of using the products imposed by a dominant economic order.

We talked about things that products believe we need, last week.

To restate, society establishes the structure and the rules. It has full control over it and the people. The people are expected to conform to these big dominant structures in society and work to build their wealth and power. This is a very obvious example of Capitalism and Capitalist society. However, de Certeau argues that in such society there are fewer and fewer places for people to make place for themselves and work for their own well-being.

Which brings us to tactics. Tactics are the ways of manipulating the system in order to find an alternative to satisfy individual needs.

In consumption it means finding a new purpose and use for products, which was not prescribed to them. (Or is it??) For example, xxxxxxxxxxx��. (example of consumer product which is misused)

I�ll try to demonstrate what do people do to cope with the structure, free up and create the space for themselves. The example I want to bring up is the research for my thesis and Uzbek Architecture.

What we see in Tashkent is the imposition of Communist structure of the society onto indigenous native Uzbek people as well as establishing dominant Russian culture, and Modernist architecture and �new� ways of living. Uzbek people were other within this new established rule. They had to find the way to adapt to the new regime and still maintain their traditional and cultural objectives. Uzbek Architects were working from within the system to alter it to their own purposes, not rejecting the dominant rule but by using these rules with respect to the dominant force, but deflecting its power. We see application of geometric patterns on the surfaces of Modernist buildings. These decorative elements were the means of appropriating architecture, making it more familiar to native Uzbek people. These patterns did not challenge Modernism, although very upfront and xxxxxxxxxx (in your face, obvious) they had a hidden meaning, which could only be understood only by people in the culture.

I believe that this is a very interesting demonstration of tactics, in de Certeau terms.

�Making Do�: Uses and Tactics

Michel de Certeau

In de Certeau's book The Practice of Everyday Life, he begins with the premise that �disciplinary powers are infusing society with their grid of control more and more extensively�.

His question is how an entire society can "manipulate the mechanisms of discipline and conform to them only in order to evade them".

De Certeau is interested with what devices, actions, and procedures people use every day on the micro level in order to subvert, for brief moments, the disciplining powers.

He finds the answer to this in "the tactic".

To illustrate this definition of "the tactic", de Certeau introduces the term "la perruque".

"La perruque" is the worker's own work being performed at the place of employment under the disguise of work for the boss. Nothing of value is stolen; what is taken advantage of is time.

The tactic here is that the worker diverts time away from producing profit for his or her employer and instead uses it for his or her own enjoyment, for activities that are "free, creative, and precisely not directed toward profit".

Everyday life, for de Certeau, is made up of such tactics as "la perruque". Everyday life is made up of tactics - "clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter's cunning�..."

Where exactly do tactics take place?  De Certeau makes it clear. A tactic must:

"...make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary powers. It poaches in them.  It creates surprises in them. It can be where it is least expected. It is a guileful ruse"

EG.

Tactic = computer viruses have �indeterminate trajectories� � do not cohere with the constructed, written, and prefabricated space through which they move. Its actions remain unpredictable within the space ordered by the organising techniques of systems.

Strategy is a calculation or manipulation of power relationships that become possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets and threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country surrounding the city, objectives and objects of research etc.) can be managed.

It is an effort to delimit one�s own place in a world bewitched by the invisible power of the Other.

The space of the tactic is the space of the Other.

Tactic is an art of the weak. A tactic is determined by the absence of power, just as a strategy is organised by the establishment of power.

It must play on the terrain imposed on it and organised by the law of a foreign power. It is a manoeuvre within the enemy�s field of vision and within enemy territory. It operates in isolated actions, it takes advantage of the �opportunities� and depends on them. What it wins it cannot keep.