The Living Documentary: Journey Across the US
But you are probably wondering, who is Termite TV? In existence since 1992, we're a Philadelphia-based video collective committed to the production and distribution of alternative, non-commercial media, packaged into half-hour shows. Termite TV was originally founded by three graduate students at Temple University: Meryl Perlson, Jim Ospenson and Mike Kuetemeyer. Their vision was to show their work on television so they could respond more quickly to current events (the Gulf war at the time). The collective secured a weekly time slot at Drexel University's Channel 54, and suddenly found themselves busily making shows with titles like "Nature versus Culture," "Gulf War" and "Television." Each show was a collage of found and appropriated footage, documentary and experimental segments circling around the show's topic. All the shows were refreshingly chaotic, nonlinear, irreverent and iconoclastic - a mix which created a devoted Termite following of media makers who would contribute their work, and audiences who enjoyed watching them.
The name Termite TV came from the classic Manny Farber essay entitled "White Elephant Art versus Termite Art" in which he states that "termite, tapeworm, fungus moss art moves always forward, eating its own boundaries and likely as not leaves nothing in its place but the signs of eager, industrious unkempt activity." True to this philosophy the Termites kept making shows, invading television like insects invading houses and trees. Currently our shows are being distributed by Free Speech TV to approximately 60 cable stations across the country, and broadcast into about 6 million homes. In time, founding members of Termite TV moved away, and new members joined. (Mike Kuetemeyer is the only remaining original member.) Now there are four core members: Mike, Carl Lee, Anula Shetty, and me, Dorothea Braemer.
In 1998 we started planning our Living Documentary trip. We already had a vehicle - a 1964 30-foot long school bus which friends of Anula and Mike's were willing to let us use. We also had cameras and our non-linear editing system, Final Cut Pro. But everything else still needed to be arranged. What would be our travel route? How would we generate money for these five months on the road? How would we be able to arrange screenings if we didn't even know yet where we would go?
One day during the fall of 1998 I was sitting at work at the Scribe Video Center when Anula called me. She told me that it was the last day to register for the NAMAC conference in Pittsburgh - and on the spur of the moment we decided to go. We quickly prepared little pamphlets about our "Living Documentary" plans, and included a questionnaire in the back for interested host organizations.
In looking back at our trip and reflecting on our travel route, it is clear that the 1998 NAMAC conference played a pivotal role in helping our trip become a reality. During the conference we met Amy Baskin from New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC) and Rene Broussard from Zeitgeist Experimental Media Experiments, both in New Orleans; Peter Mitchell from 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle; Robby Butler and others from Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo, New York; James Duesing from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh; John Gwinn from Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis; Sarah Smiley of Videospace in Boston; Sally Berger from the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and many other great people from around the country. Some said right then and there that they would like to host us and screen our work, others were interested and we stayed in touch, making arrangements via e-mail. Based on these contacts, we constructed our travel route.
We left in August 1999. We had our first screening at Somerville Cable (arranged by filmmaker Sarah Smiley). In Buffalo, New York, we showed work at Squeaky Wheel and collaborated with local filmmakers to produce a segment about money for an upcoming show. At Intermedia Arts we premiered "Money" - our first show cut on the road, and finished only 5 minutes before show time! In Seattle we showed work at 911 Media Arts before we jumped into a plane to stay in Sitka, Alaska for two weeks.
Back on the mainland, we traveled down south, continuing to screen and produce work along the way. We stopped in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Tucson. We spent time at the Ford Apache Indian Reservation in Boulder, Colorado. We visited Norman, Oklahoma, and in New Orleans we lived for a week in an apartment above NOVAC. We headed to Knoxville, Tennessee and on to Kentucky before we went back to Philadelphia in December.
Even though we didn't make any money on the trip, we were able to break even. Our income consisted of some grants, screening honoraria from media art centers, and fees for workshops we taught in universities along the way. The project was truly a grassroots effort in self distribution. Based on the model of independent music (we often felt more like a rock band than a video group) we took distribution into our own hands. Universities and colleges welcomed our workshops in independent media production, and media arts centers offered us excellent screening opportunities - often in wonderfully intimate settings which allowed for good discussion after the screening.
We were able to produce four half-hour shows on the road: "Money," "Life Stories from Sitka, Alaska;" "Violent," and "Life Stories from the Borderlands." Apart from these shows we also videotaped people's life stories ("Tell your life story in five minutes"), collecting close to 200 five-minute life stories from people all over the United States. We also maintained a web site - www.termite.org - which still features our travel route, journal entries, contact information, catalogue of work, and life stories.
The Living Documentary trip was a great experience for all of us. Yes, it was difficult to spend so much time together and work so hard (traveling, shooting, editing and screening work is a lot - especially if you are travelling in an old bus which regularly breaks down), but it was just so inspiring to take our fate into our own hands.
Instead of waiting for others to screen or broadcast us, we planned our own distribution. Instead of surfing the web, we travelled the real world and saw for ourselves "what's going on." In our brochure we wrote that we wanted to "connect community and independent voices across the United States," and looking back on our journey, I think we accomplished that, in our own "termite" way. We produced truly independent media (not beholden to any funders) with the help of the inspiringly strong and resourceful independent media community in this country - and it all started at the 1998 NAMAC Conference!
DOROTHEA BRAEMER was a Co-Director of the Philadelphia-based Termite TV Collective
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