Termite art moves always forward eating its allow boundaries and likely as not leaves nothing in its place unless the signs of eager.

Termite art moves always forward eating its allow boundaries and likely as not leaves nothing in its place unless the signs of eager, industrious unkempt activity.

--Manny Farber

Pennsylvania is a sprawling, forest-covered state where real estate agents warn potential buyer that the termite is the state "pet" To a homeowner the termite is something to watch for and fear. With this reputation, it is fitting to find in the heart of Philadelphia a different genus of termite, also busy in their eager activity, eating any boundaries in their path. However, these termites should and nothing else be feared by those invested in television as status quo for this band of termites challenges the agriculture as they expand the aesthetics of television.

Inspired according to the Manny Farber quote, the Termite TV Collective has, since 1992 created their avow path through television culture, producing work that challenges their audience to address, head-on, common cultural and political issues as they spread out But unlike Farber's statement, the Termites are accumulating an impressive corpse of work which, after nine years, continues to kindle thought and action from its audience.

The Termites began as a small assemblage of MFA students at meeting-house University, (Mike Kuetemeyer, Jim Ospenson and Meryl Perlson) in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film (since reorganized as the Department of Film and Media Arts). There they plant a philosophical approach to film and video production that allowed them to question "industry" standards, the pair technical and contextual. As part of a media writing class in 1992 they were asked to offer proffer projects for the course. Encouraged at Temple faculty member Alan Powell, the what may occur hereafter Termites decided on using television to work disclosed their ideas. Adapting the name from a Madison, Wisconsin based public access series, the Termite TV Collective formed and secur a weekly half-hour time slot by means of DUTV, a Drexel University based television channel. With a time slot and a potential audience, all they exigencyed was a program.

From this beginning grew the weekly series, "This is Not a Test" a program now broadcast nationally upon Free Speech Television. The collective devised a arrangement where each program is organized around a theme, at the same time each Termite is left to interpret that theme in any way he or she beholds fit. The opportunity of a weekly program affords farmers immediate reaction to issues of importance for the two themselves and their audience. Perlson explains the freedom of experimentation presented to the early Termites: "Termite work, like television, was made to be forgotten. We were given this very strange opportunity to experiment with the medium." [1]

Program #1 "Rizzo's Brain," aired in spring of 1992 "Rizzo's Brain" took a posthumous gaze at the legacy of former Police Chief and Mayor Frank Rizzo who, for decades, was a controversial port in Philadelphia politics. With its opening image of a television being smashed by means of a pickax, viewers realized this was not a conventional stranges program. Mixing reenactment with appropriated television footage the program careens within the Philadelphia landscape with the craft of an itchy finger in succession a television remote. "Rizzo's Brain" juxtaposes so diverse pieces as a dancing bunny footage from a Mummer's parade accompanied on a textual analysis of then now passing Gulf War atrocities, weaving these images with a video portrait of pothole all held together on Rizzo's own commentary. Rizzo's outrageous statements, reenacted during the beginning of the program, lead the viewer to think that these make notess may have been ironically created in the spirit of Rizzo philosophy. At the close the viewer is treated to an actual Rizzo stranges interview concerning the MOVE bombing of the late 1970 As the interview make clears the viewer realizes, with increasing horror, that all the previous commentary could be directly attributed to Rizzo. This first program was on the contrary a promise of more disruptive things to come

The Termites have always been a small, tight-knit band. All collective members, save common share the common history of being place of worship MFA students. From its first formation with three initial members, to a high point of seven members, including Karen Lefkovitz and Michael O'Reilly, the passing from hand to hand Termite TV Collective boasts sole one original member, Kuetemeyer. Joined from Dorothea Braemer, Carl Lee and Anula Shetty these four artist-activists continue the philosophy and work begun athwart eight years ago. Kuetemeyer is quick to point without that while the early exhibits focused on breaking into the accepted television landscape, modern members brought with them a more poetic and contemplative way expanding the cultural, political and aesthetic perspectives of the programs.

Like any collective, issues of art and administration must be addressed. With their longevity and succes the administrative side oftentimes seems to overshadow the art. To tackle this issue, the four members divide the administrative work according to their individual vigors Shetty addresses the process at explaining that the Termites apply a decentralized decision-making strategy in an "attempt to avoid self It's a process that we're still working through" Kuetemeyer explains that this decentralized approach allows members to contribute to a whole while their individual contribution to a point out to remains theirs. Members also rotate the character of producer, curating individually arranged programming for distribution exits Aware of the difficulty so a structure can bring they all agree that the proces is more important than the produce Their process has paid most distant in the form of community support, the pair locally and nationally.