Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image

"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