Ant Farm (group)
Encyclopedia
Ant Farm was an avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 architecture, graphic arts, and environmental design practice, founded in San Francisco in 1968 by Chip Lord
Chip Lord
Chip Lord is an American Digital Media artist currently teaching at UC Santa Cruz and residing in the Bay Area. He is best known for his work with the alternative architecture and media collective known as Ant Farm, which he co-founded with Doug Michels in 1968...

 and Doug Michels.

The group

The name was given to them by a friend to whom they had described what they were doing as “underground architecture,” taking the name literally she responded, “oh underground architecture is what ants do!” Eventually, Lord and Michels were joined by Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier.

The group was a self-described "art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection." In addition to their architecture works, the collective was well-known for their counter-cultural performances and media events, such as Media Burn. Their installation, Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, U.S. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm, and it consists of what were either older running used or junk Cadillac automobiles, representing a...

, remains an icon of American popular culture. Ant Farm disbanded in 1978 when a fire destroyed their San Francisco studio. Doug Michels went on to design the unbuilt statue The Spirit of Houston
The Spirit of Houston
The Spirit of Houston was planned to be a 555-foot statue in Houston, Texas. The project was abandoned after the architect, Doug Michels, died. The planners felt that the city had an image problem in response to Houston not being chosen for the 2012 Olympics...

.

Inflatables, 1971

Ant Farm traveled America with a tour of "architectural performances" during which the group unfurled its anti-architectural Inflatables - inexpensive, portable shelters made of vinyl that provided the stage for lectures and "happenings." Anyone who wanted to make an inflatable could buy Ant Farm's Inflatocookbook.

House of the Century, 1972

In collaboration with architect Richard Jost, Ant Farm designed and built a Futurist
Futurist architecture
Futurist architecture is an early-20th century form of architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal lines suggesting speed, motion and urgency. Technology and even violence were among the themes of the Futurists. The movement was founded by the poet Filippo Tommaso...

 ferro-cement residence. The house is noted for its curvilinear and organic shapes, inspired by the Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

 lunar landing. In 2004, the group described the house as "a ruin", and in 2006, Dwell
Dwell
Dwell means to live in a place, a dwelling. It may also refer to:*In gun accurizing, bullet dwell time, time between cartridge ignition, and the time the bullet leaves the barrel.* Dwell, a leading UK furniture and accessories company...

architecture magazine stated that the house was "partially submerged in a Texas swamp", but Chip Lord corresponded that it was not, but was "undergoing a renovation supervised by Richard Jost, working with the owner". As of 2009 it was still a private residence, reported as being somewhat overgrown, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

Cadillac Ranch, 1974

In Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo is the 14th-largest city, by population, in the state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The population was 190,695 at the 2010 census...

, Ant Farm half-buried a row of 10 used and junk Cadillac automobiles dating from 1949 to 1963, nose-first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The installation is set up to the west of Amarillo near Interstate
Interstate
An Interstate is a type of high-speed, limited-access highway in the United StatesInterstate may also refer to:-Media:*Interstate 60 , a metaphysical comedy/drama road film...

 I-40 on the famous former Route 66.

Media Burn, 1975

In 1975 Ant Farm, dressed as astronauts, drove a space-age Cadillac full speed through a wall of flaming TV sets in the parking lot of the Cow Palace
Cow Palace
Cow Palace is an indoor arena, in Daly City, California, situated on the city's border with neighboring San Francisco, notable as a sporting arena.-History:...

, San Francisco. Media Burn offered a critique of media and technology. Their video of the performance was also styled after news coverage of a space launch, including melodramatic pre-stunt interviews with the artists.

The Eternal Frame, 1975

A re-enactment of the assassination of John F. Kennedy as seen in the Zapruder film
Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, asU.S. President John F...

.
Done in collaboration with the media art collective, T. R. Uthco (Diane Andrews Hall, Doug Hall, Jody Procter). The Eternal Frame focused on this event as a crucial site of fascination and repression in the American mindset.

Media Van

As they traveled the United States, Ant Farm drove in the Media Van, a customized Chevy complete with a bubble skylight for videotaping road side scenery.

In 2009, Ant Farm revived Media Van for an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

 (SFMOMA) titled “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now”. The Media Van had electronic connections that allowed the public to upload images, videos, and songs onto the van's hard-drive. The van was then sealed, like a time-capsule, with a scheduled reopening in 2030.

See also

  • Futurist
    Futurist architecture
    Futurist architecture is an early-20th century form of architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal lines suggesting speed, motion and urgency. Technology and even violence were among the themes of the Futurists. The movement was founded by the poet Filippo Tommaso...

  • Anti-consumerism
    Anti-consumerism
    Anti-consumerism refers to the socio-political movement against the equating of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions...

  • Stanley Marsh 3
    Stanley Marsh 3
    Stanley Marsh 3 is an artist, philanthropist, and prankster from Amarillo, Texas, USA. He is perhaps best known as the sponsor of the Cadillac Ranch, an unusual public art exhibit west of Amarillo.-Art projects and pranks:...

  • Archigram
    Archigram
    Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s - based at the Architectural Association, London - that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects...

  • Superstudio
    Superstudio
    Superstudio was an architecture firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia. Superstudio was one of major part of the Radical architecture movement of the late 1960s...


External links


Detailed description with photos.

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