Ant Farm 1968-1978
This richly illustrated book provides a fascinating critical overview of Ant Farm, the radical architecture collective that brought us Cadillac Ranch, Media Burn, and The Eternal Frame. Established by several young renegade architects in 1968, Ant Farm was eager to bring to its practice a revolutionary spirit more consistent with the times. Its vision encompassed creations for a nomadic lifestyle, including inflatable structures and radical environments that culminated in projects such as the...
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"Through published projects, museum exhibitions, built works, and video, Ant Farm has continued to question the limits of architectural practice, its purpose, and its consequences. Blurring the line between art, architecture, and environmental activism, the Ant Farmers have consistently shown us new ways of analyzing, engaging, and understanding our world-even if we're left wondering about our future."—David A. Ross, editor of Art in Technological Times"Ant Farm was a gorgeous god-knows-what: a collective project that straddled architecture and performance art and pioneered video art, that embraced some of the most radical ideas of the 1960s while remaining fond of iconic mainstream America, that was from the Bay Area and the East Coast and Texas, and that was generally as funny as it was smart. Now at last it's adequately documented for the benefit of future generations who should most definitely know about Media Burn and inflatable environments and the ideas behind Cadillac Ranch and Where They Are Now. Buy it today. No home is complete without."—Rebecca Solnit, author of As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art
ANT FARM 1968-1978\ \ By CONSTANCE M. LEWALLEN STEVE SEID \ University of California\ Copyright © 2004 Regents of the University of California\ All right reserved.\ ISBN: 0-520-24030-8 \ \ \ \ Chapter One\ For a decade, beginning is 1968, the partners in Ant Farm explore the experimental fringe in architecture, design, and the media arts. During the group's most productive period. 1973 - 1977 they created Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas; designed and built The House of the Century, near Houston; produced the performative video works Media Burn and The Eternal Frame; buried The Citizen's Time capsule at Artpark near Buffalo. New York; and designed a series of visionary architectural projects. The partners had dispersed by 1978 when a fire destroyed their studio at Pier 40 in San Francisco. They re-united in l987 to create a sculpture for the Hard Rock Cafe in Houston, \ The following pages detail Ant Farm's activities with materials produce in the 1970's and taken from Ant Farm scrapbooks. Portions of this document were originally created as a book proposal made to E.P. Dutton in 1975.\ AN ASTROCAMP?\ See Doug Hurr put his boots on. Doug Hurr and his friends recently held a camp-out. It was a fun camp-out and the funniest thing about it was where in was held. See the American flag in the background? See the million-dollar scoreboard? See the happy smiles? You'd be smiling too if The judge let you spend the night in the Astrodome The event was part of Time Slice, a six-weak experimental communications and environment workshop taught by Douh Michels and Chip Lord which is now in progress under the auspices of the University of Houston College of Architecture. Among those who frolicked in the Astrodome that night last week were Pam Richardson, Dave Stoms, Mike Pratka, Susan Rohrdanz, Diane Bennett, Steve Jackson, Rodney Pease, Kelly Gloger, Eric Jackson, Galen Hope, Vance Tilton, Irving Forbush and Joe Hall. The group spent the night on and in a 60-foot parachute held aloft by helium ballons. "Astroturf," said Lord, "is pretty comfortable. Better than your average ground." What next? Well, they're going to see about spending the night in the Humble Building.\ (Continues...)\ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from ANT FARM 1968-1978 by CONSTANCE M. LEWALLEN STEVE SEID Copyright © 2004 by Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \
ForewordLenders, funders, and venuesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1Sex, drugs, rock and roll, cars, dolphins, and architecture4Searching for energy14Tunneling through the wasteland : Ant Farm video22Interview with Ant Farm : Constance M. Lewallen in conversation with Chip Lord, Doug Michels, and Curtis Schreier38Ant Farm timeline88Autoamerica (excerpt)150Friends of Ant Farm167Exhibition history171Bibliography173List of illustrations179Index183About the contributors187
