The Ant Farm

Ant Farm was a collective of architects, video artists, and designers that embraced radical modes of cultural production and dissemination through architecture, performance, and media events. Launched in 1968, notable works from Ant Farm include their time capsule projects and their anti-architectural inflatable structures that housed participatory lectures and happenings. For example, in Citizens Time Capsule (1971), Ant Farm filled a 1968 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon with donated objects from local residents of Lewiston, NY and buried it at ArtPark State Park; the idea was to disinter the car in 2000. Although the car remains buried, Ant Farm disbanded in 1978 after a fire destroyed their studio in San Francisco. The core members of Ant Farm included Chip Lord, Doug Michels, Hudson Marquez, and Curtis Schreier. Begun in 2007, LST is a contemporary reworking of Ant Farm that includes Lord, Schreier, and artist and architect Bruce Tomb. In this new iteration, LST explores notions of archiving vis-à-vis digital technology. In 1975, Ant Farm held a media presentation at The Kitchen of their project Cadillac Ranch (1974), a sculpture of ten Cadillacs half-buried nose-first in the ground beside Interstate 40 in Amarillo, Texas.