History of Ant Farm
Ant Farm was formed in 1968 by architecture post-graduates Doug Michels and Chip Lord who were later joined by Curtis Schreier as one of the group’s core members (Feldman 1). Chip Lord was an architecture graduate from Tulane University and later received various awards such as the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships; the Creative Artist Fellowship from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission; and the Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships (Electronic Arts Intermix). Douglas Michel, on the other hand, graduated from the Yale School of Architecture and after Ant Farm, spent the rest of his career teaching at universities (Johnson).
Ant Farm was an architecture and design group whose activities focused on video, installation, performance, and environmental art. They “promoted a mod, space-age sensibility and often embraced the latest technologies” (Feldman 1).
They were part of the Guerilla Movement in that the portable video camera played a big role in their work where they tried to use video collectives to promote social and political awareness. For example, they spoofed media and the corporate culture in their videos. Their work also aimed to critique the present and envision the future.
Media Burn was produced as a symbolic destruction of two of America’s most valued yet insidious commodities, namely the car and the TV. It was also meant as a criticism against the control of information by the mass media and the control of wealth by the corporate world. They believed that the mediated point of view was what made media very influential and they drove this point home by spoofing or distorting events in their videos and documentaries instead of depicting ort narrating them as they actually happened.
Nichols’ Modes of Documentary
Some of the modes used in the video Media Burn were observational, reflexive, and participatory. The observational mode was used when covering the supposed speech of JFK and when covering the goings-on around the event where the camera just followed what the people were doing. The reflexive mode, on the other hand, was used in that the camera men were shown while they were covering the event. Finally, the participatory mode was used as the filmmaker could be heard interviewing some of the event’s participants.
Renov’s Tendencies of Documentary
Some of the tendencies used in Media Burn included to record, reveal, or preserve; to persuade or promote; and to analyze or interrogate. Firstly, the entire Media Burn video was meant to record and preserve the event of the burning car crashing into the pyramid of TV sets, which was a criticism of how much time people spent watching TV. The tendency to persuade or promote was also used in that the video was trying to promote awareness about how people were being manipulated by media and by corporations. In particular, one scene showed one of the artist dummies being interviewed where he said, “If everyone in America would burn just one TV set” Lastly, the tendency to analyze or interrogate was depicted at the beginning of the video where a TV reporter and news anchor said that they didn’t get the meaning or purpose of the event. They were trying to figure out what the event was for and then one of them said that they didn’t want to get it.
Works Cited
Ant Farm, Chip Lord, Doug Michels, Curtis Schreier, Uncle Buddie, Tom Weinberg. “Media.
Burn (1975).” archive.org. The Internet Archive, 10 Mar. 2001. Web. 18 May, 2012.
Electronic Arts Intermix. “Chip Lord.” eai.org. Electronic Arts Intermix, 2012. Web. 18 May
2012.
Feldman, Melissa E. “Unearthing Ant Farm: A Quarter Century after the Disbanding of Ant
Farm, a Traveling Exhibition Pieces Together the History of This Group of Iconoclastic,
Media-Obsessed Artists.” soma.sbcc.edu. Santa Barbara City College, 30 Dec. 2007.
Web. 18 May 2012.
Johnson, Ken. “Doug Michels, Radical Artist and Architect, Dies at 59.” The New York Times 21 Jun 2003. Web. 18 May 2012.
“Modes of Documentary – Bill Nichols.” godnose.co.uk. Godnose, n.d. Web.18 May 2012.
