CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/31/2021

Hot Book Alert: 'Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image' is Back in Stock!

Featured spreads are from Media Burn: Ant Farm and the Making of an Image, an in-depth study of the San Francisco conceptual art and architecture practice Ant Farm’s legendary 1975 Media Burn performance, in which a customized Cadillac, “the Phantom Dream Car,” was driven through a wall of burning television sets in a seminal act of consumerist critique. In a souvenir booklet published on the occasion of the July 4, 1975, performance, the members of Ant Farm wrote, “There was born in America during World War II a generation of children who were to be introduced to the new invention, television, at a formative age. This generation, different from those older whose view of reality was catalyzed before television and those younger who never knew a reality without the tube, is the ‘television generation.’ They grew up as the medium itself was growing up. ‘Media Burn’ is a statement from representatives of the ‘television generation.’
At 2:50 today the phantom dream car… will start its engine to begin an historic trip. It will shoot across the Cow Palace parking lot into the just-ignited stack of 50 television sets. At the moment of impact Admirals, RCA’s, G.E.’s, Sylvanas, Zeniths and Hoffmans will fly apart in a cathartic explosion. The car will shoot on through to the other side and, God willing, the two dummies will step out unhurt, free at last from the addiction of television.”