Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image - by Steve Seid (Paperback)

About the Book

"Ant Farm, the conceptual architectural practice turned art collaborative, is known for such distinctive works as House of the Century (1971-73), Cadillac Ranch (1974), and The Eternal Frame (1975). -- Of equal notoriety is Media Burn, Ant Farm's legendary 1975 performance, in which a radically customized Cadillac was driven through a wall of burning television sets. Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image is a vibrant assessment of the complex set of cultural references and art-making strategies informing this collision of twentieth-century icons. -- Author Steve Seid (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) probes the little-known critical backstory of this bold performance (and resulting video work) and its irreverent effort to mount a subversive critique of media hegemony while reimagining the core meaning of performance itself. -- Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image examines car culture, image proliferation, and radical architectural practice, and offers a close read of Media Burn's numerous texts, speeches, ephemera, and artifacts."--Provided by publisher

Book Synopsis

A detailed account of Ant Farm's 1975 Media Burn performance, a legendary act of consumerist critique

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 customized Cadillac, dubbed the Phantom Dream Car, was driven through a wall of burning television sets.

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 Media Burn 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.

Review Quotes

Language is pinned to context but images happen over and over again, as what they capture is reanimated with each viewing.--Theadora Walsh "SFMoMA"

There's no shortage of meaning in the collision of a fast-moving car anda burning wall of TVs, but Seid skillfully explores ideas that are far from obvious. The text is intellectually stimulating and dense, yet highly readable. But the book is also a visual treat, with the original $1 program reprinted on its pages, stills from the video (fourth spread), and lots of images beyond that single, iconic image.--John Hill "Archidose"

Seid's work of art history, "Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image," was published in November as a softbound book with full-bleed double-truck images and an account of the year it took to customize the Caddy into a land rocket called the Phantom Dream Car and accumulate 40 TV sets, many the living room console style in vogue at that time. The organization and documentation of "Media Burn" [is] nearly as complex as the staging of Cristo's "Running Fence," which was completed the next year along the hills in Marin and Sonoma counties.--Sam Whiting "San Francisco Chronicle"