Terrance KINDOFABIGDEAL Houle

Okay, this is really only me promoting my friend and fellow interdisciplinary media artist, Terrance TJ Houle, from the Blood Tribe in Canada, to learn more about him here is his site: terrancehoule.com, or you can just google him, go ahead he won't mind, actually he likes to be googled, he thinks it's dirty!

He also googlebates (TJ's word not mine—oh but you know I'm gonna use it), who of us doesn't? I googlebated earlier at work, and no one is the wiser. It's so fulfilling, and satisfying, I just might do it again, but I better clear my history so it's a clean go 'round. I actually found that poorly written bad review by googlebating, the first post here, the Sandee Moore, self-proclaimed, "Inter-Media Artist." She eats gingerbread houses that are "human-sized" and calls it a performance . . . please it took her six days to eat it and it was 1/4 "human-size." I could eat it in two days, now that's a performance. TJ wants to know what an "Inter-Media" artist is, as do I. She must make tons of bank working in tv, radio, cinema, internet, print, et cetera, as an "Inter-Media" artist—she really means multi-media, but prefers to use the anachronistic term, which really didn't see a rise in usage, academically or otherwise. Go ahead, google it. I'll wait for you.

I digressed. Okay, so if you're in the Calgary area 01.09.10, check this out:

The High Performance Rodeo presents
Grandstand Night 3
Matt Masters with Terrance Houle

Monsters, aliens, cowboys and . . . indie bands? For the third consecutive year, the Rodeo rocks to the tune of Grandstand, where Calgary’s hottest musicians team with visual artists to create an unforgettable collage of sound and film. This time ‘round, they pay tribute to the movie magic of cult films, bringing life to the silver screen by mixing film clips and soundtracks with original music in a genre-tastic re-imagination of cinematic classics.

So, I have been trying to solicit TJ's wonderfully humorous and satirical assistance in a feature length documentary, but funding opportunities are turning up dry, another rejection from the All Roads Film Project which if I had received funding from them it would have covered travel costs bringing the internationally known TJ to the US for us to collaborate on the documentary, he with his witty and cutting skills as a performance artist conducting interviews and me with my cinematography, directing and editing prowess. Now we are hoping to be able to collaborate on this documentary if funding, somehow, "rears it's head."

Fortunately, we have the ability to instance message one another on occasion, that's of course when he isn't busy creating work and I'm not bogged down in the drudgery of my "digital media specialist" position at my grown-up job. Although that job has afforded me the opportunity to earn bank so I can travel on occasion, not to mention the editing suite I maintain and the tools therein.

So, why am I babbling you might ask? Terrance and I are coming to a town near you, we are about to blowup and spread the theatrics of Indigeneity upon all who are near, or at least one of us will. Well, for the most part that's Terrance. He's been a great friend encouraging me to seek funding and residencies, and encouraging me to visit Germany . . . 2010 look out.

Just check out Terrance's work and watch out for him, I hear he likes to punch the moose knuckle when people wear spandex, so all you spandex clad fools better be faster than TJ, otherwise, POW, he'll sock you one right in the moose knuckle.

Critiquing 101: a Poorly Written Bad Critique is Worse Than a Bad Critique

http://www.uptownmag.com/2009-10-22/page4737.aspx

The above link is from Uptown Magazine Online - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts Entertainment & News (10/22/09), an e-zine in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. It is within that URL where I received an extremely anemic and poorly written, bad review of my solo art video exhibition, RoundUP by self-proclaimed "inter-media artist" & critic, Sandee Moore.

I'm not one to hold grudges against someone critiquing my work. But, when that critique suffers from possessing any critical analysis of the available work, I tend to feel slighted that my name is even mentioned, in this case almost as an afterthought—the proof is in the pudding here—not even one title of my works were mentioned in her so called "critique," of which four sentences were devoted to my exhibit. It's apparent that Ms. Moore lacks any understanding of intertextuality or semiotics, but this is not to blame Ms. Moore for her shortcomings, only to warn others when critiquing work make sure you understand and analyze that work before you attempt to write about it. Where Ms. Moore is anemic in analyzing my work is in her lack or inability to negotiate notions of stereotypes, power structures and how representations work within notions of power. Supposedly in Ms. Moore's world, everyone knows about these stereotypes and her analysis of my work consists of "his seizure-inducing, rapid editing does little, if anything, to provide a new context for his source material." The editing is only the re-presentation of the "stereotypes." It is within the juxtapositions of the imagery, their relationships and the "re-presentations" where the context exists, intertextuality; not to mention only three of my works include rapid editing.

This particular blog is not to slander Ms. Moore, only heed warning to individuals who proclaim they are "critiquing" art when in fact, they have only offered an opinion (obviously Ms. Moore was capable of critiquing David Garneau's work in the text above the four sentences she proffered her opinion where she scrutinized my works). Without sufficient analysis a critique is simply an opinion. So, Ms. Moore and any other self-proclaimed, critic out there, when dealing with imagery be sure you fully comprehend how images work when placed or inserted next to another image, also know the original context of that imagery before you attempt to criticize it.

I have no problem accepting a bad critique/review, that is well-written, which didn't seem to exist as an after-thought or because my exhibit was one of two showing concurrently.

So having said all that, here is an example of an analytically written critique of Kemosabe version 1.0 one of my "seizure-inducing" pieces (which can be found at the—Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival website):

Kemosabe version 1.0 disrupts the colonial racial logic of the "American Frontier" by recalibrating the relationship between Tonto and the Lone Ranger. Through syncopated beats of dialogue and music, Mendoza reworks an offensive stereotype for Native Americans whose history in U.S. cultural production begins with the dime novels of Zane Grey and continues through radio shows, comic books, serial movies, and television series, where the characters were portrayed by actors Jay Silverheels and Clayton Moore. Here, the ambiguous meaning of "kemosabe," Tonto’s name for the Lone Ranger, foregrounds the productive possibilities for repurposing the toxins of cultural artefacts.

—curators’ essay by Dale Hudson and Sharon Lin Tay

AN UPDATE to the traveling and vastly growing Round-UP (Santa Fe) exhibit, another view from an academic's perspective: Blog Review of Round-UP Santa Fe, by Bill Adams.