Critical Writing Index

Flaming Pixels, Cosmic Puke: Ryan Trecartin's A Family Finds Entertainment

by Jon Davies

Cinematic Folds: the furling and unfurling of images., 2008, pp. 97-108

Toronto: Pleasure Dome, 2008

Jon Davies contextualizes Ryan Trecartin's video epic, A Family Finds Entertainment within the larger scope of queer cinema and performance, drawing a direct line between Trecartin's exhausting, A.D.D fueled troupe of misfits and the earlier cinematic and performance work of Jack Smith. Extending from a history drag, self-aware performance, and camp, A Family Finds Entertainment is an impression of a new generation of queer culture on the Internet. Trecartin is quoted "We consume and consume and puke, more than fetishize the objects and information we use [...] We don't act inside or outside of consumer culture, entertainment, or art culture, we consume and translate. We are a by-product of it."

ITEM 2008.096 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

A Family Finds EntertainmentRyan Trecartin

Blonde CobraJack Smith

Blonde CobraKen Jacobs

Blonde CobraBob Fleischner