Everything is (not so) Terrible!: Heuretic Glitchicism as Method for Electrate (Re)composing

Abstract

Abstract Drawing from the rhetorical and aesthetic model of the art collective Everything Is Terrible! (EIT!), this article introduces heuretic glitchicism as electrate methodology for video-composition remix and remediation. The appropriation and application of EIT!’s glitch and edit method (i.e., heuretic glitchicism) thus provides a model for digital rhetoric and composition that dovetails rhetorical analysis (i.e., hermeneutics) and invention (i.e., heuretics), which in turn provides several generative lessons (i.e., heuretic glitchicism). First, EIT!’s digital glitching and editing of pop culture VHS tapes constitute the practice of remix and remediation, often by way of absurdist humor, which are key to the proper development of electrate rhetoric and writing in general, videocy in particular. Second, glitch and edit remix and remediation renders both kairos and ideology as more transparent, which clears the way for what Gregory Ulmer considers the electrate konsult of theopraxesis. Third, EIT!’s glitch and edit methods encourage a participatory and circulatory rhetorical exchange.