Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image - Documentary DVD - 1970s Art Performance - Perfect for Art History Students and Media Studies Enthusiasts

Product Description

Publisher: Inventory Press/RITE Editions, 2020, ISBN: 9781941753354, Format: 230 x 300mm, 128pp, 150 colour ills

This book examines the complex set of cultural references and art-making strategies informing Ant Farm’s seminal 1975 performance Media Burn in which a customised Cadillac, dubbed the Phantom Dream Car, was driven through a wall of burning television sets. In this work the artists flourished in a rich tumult of ideas that engaged contemporary media theory, an oddly complicated aesthetic spectacle, textual appropriation and an all-encompassing branding effort.

Originally conceived as a conceptual architectural practice, Ant Farm evolved into a full-service art collaborative, culminating in such notable works as House of the Century (1971-73), Cadillac Ranch(1974) and The Eternal Frame (1975). In this work the artists flourished in a rich tumult of ideas that engaged contemporary media theory, an oddly complicated aesthetic spectacle, textual appropriation and an all-encompassing branding effort.Written by Steve Seid (Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive), and drawing upon a rich visual documentation, this book delves into the little-known critical backstory to this influential performance (and video work) involving a massive effort to mount a subversive critique of media hegemony while continually re-imagining the crux of the performance itself.