EAI Presents at Monkeytown November 2005: Ant Farm EAI presents four works by legendary media collective Ant Farm. Ant Farm specialized in their own unique brand of live media intervention. Featuring footage of Ant Farm at work, documents of their performances, and interviews with the collective, their audiences, and accidental observers, these works are the closest that we can come to actually being at one of their Spectacles. In Media Burn (1975-2003) and Cadillac Ranch Show (1974-94), Ant Farm encourages the viewer to find new uses for the automobile and to declare independence from Television. The Eternal Frame (1975), in which Ant Farm restages the infamous Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy's assassination, is a dark examination of this iconic event and the media. Finally, Inflatables Illustrated (1971-2003) shows Ant Farm at their most utopian, experimenting with DIY inflatable architecture in Ant Farm's version of a How-To Video. Throughout the four pieces, Ant Farm suggests that another, very different world can be built out of the wreckage of consumer culture. Thursday, November 3, 10, & 17, 2005 First Seating: 7:30 pm Second Seating: 10:00 pm Admission: $10 Monkeytown 58 North 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Reservations are recommended: www.monkeytownhq.com ___________________________________ Ant Farm was an innovative countercultural collective working in media, architecture and spectacle from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Their media events, site structures, performances and videotapes merge an irreverent pop humor with cultural and political critique. Founded in 1968 in San Francisco by Chip Lord and Doug Michels as an alternative architecture, graphic arts, and environmental design practice, Ant Farm expanded to include Curtis Schreier and, at times, Douglas Hurr and Hudson Marquez. Functioning as a self-proclaimed "art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection," Ant Farm was one of the most influential of the early media-based collectives. Ant Farm's media events and performances, which integrated art into everyday life, were conceptual works that challenged the symbols and ideologies of post-war American culture and mass media. Conceived on a public scale, their projects were distinguished by an ironic humor, an awareness of the media's fascination with spectacle, and a postmodern use of America's kitsch culture of automobiles and television. Ant Farm's work is on permanent display at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Their work has been shown at the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, NY; Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musee d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France, and Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland, among other venues. A retrospective of Ant Farm's work, entitled Ant Farm 1968-1978, was organized by the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, and Pacific Film Archives, and opened in January 2004 at the Berkeley Art Museum. The exhibition traveled to the Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, the University of Houston, TX; Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany; and is currently on view at the Yale University School of Architecture Gallery until November 4, 2005. For more information about Ant Farm please visit: www.eai.org. Programmed by Josh Kline. ___________________________________ Upcoming Programs: December 2005: Tony Oursler's Synesthesia Interviews on rock and art. ___________________________________ About EAI Founded in 1971, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is one of the world's leading nonprofit resources for video art and interactive media. EAI's core program is the international distribution of a major collection of new and historical media works by artists. EAI's programs include a preservation program, viewing access, educational services, online resources, and public programs such as exhibitions and lectures. The Online Catalogue provides a comprehensive resource on the 175 artists and 3,000 works in the EAI collection, including artists' biographies, descriptions of works, QuickTime excerpts, research materials, Web projects, and online ordering. Electronic Arts Intermix 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 (212) 337-0680 tel (212) 337-0679 fax info@eai.org http://www.eai.org