American
1968, California and Houston, Texas
1978
In 1968 Chip Lord and Doug Michels (joined later by Curtis Schreier) founded Ant Farm, a multidisciplinary collective involved with alternative architecture, performance, and video. Based in San Francisco (and later Houston), they embraced the youth counterculture of the time, which influenced their visionary desire to work collaboratively outside the traditional art realm. Idealistic, nonhierarchical, and culturally "underground," the collective took its name from a friend who commented that its members worked like an ant farm. Notable projects include the air-filled vinyl Inflatables (1969–72), performances such as Citizen's Time Capsule (1975), the Cadillac Ranch (1974) installation in Amarillo, Texas, and videos such as Media Burn (1975).
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