Originally published in Domus 522/May 1973
The San Francisco and Houston-based Ant Farm is a group of philosophers, film-makers, politicians, and architects who live a nomadic and collectively organized Iife scattered throughout Texas and California. Every member of the community is an active participant in the realization of social actions that range from building buildings, to making objects, records, video tapes and demonstrations. Their sense of cohesion is extraordinary. The operations performed on one coast are nearly identical to the operations that other members of the group may excogitate on the other. The underground spirit of the group has sent out an army of termites into the subsoil of American officialdom.
Fundamentally, Ant Farm are artists hell-bent on the destruction of America's myths and public values, through performances and through the political transmissions of the underground TVTV station—Top Value Television. A policy of guerilla video offers information radically different from what is available on ordinary American television.
Ant Farm as seen by Germano Celant
Long before it was hit by the Brazos River flood in 1985, the House of the Century was visited by Germano Celant, who introduced it to Domus readers in 1973.
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- Germano Celant
- 25 March 2011
- Angleton
No single communication form, however, is of more interest to Ant Farm than another. They thrive on all forms of media and have made interventions into many fields, from architecture to community planning to the general environment. These interests come more or less to a head in a series of videotapes such as "Truckstop Network" tapes that deal with the idea of the techniques of counter culture and counter information within the context of a social condition of continuous and continuously chosen vagabondage. "Inflatables Iliustrated" and "Instant City" are other tapes that deal with instant architecture and instant city-planning. "Instant City" deals with the establishment of a temporary colony at Ibiza.
But Ant Farm has also done some work in more stable fields: for instance "The House of the Century 1972–2072," designed and constructed in Angleton, Texas, by Richard Jost, Charles Lord, Jr., and Doug Michels for Marilyn and Alvin Lubetkin. The idea for the house comes out of a "trip" and marks the meeting of the images of an alligator and a 1930 Ford—all on the edge of a lake.
The contrast between the inside and
the outside of the house is extraordinarily
violent. It stands out against
the sylvan background in which it is
placed like some enormous and extraneous
Lunar Module landed there
by accident after having missed the
nearby NASA base. And all while
managing to look a little art deco.
Inside the house, one is immediately
struck by the reminiscence of something
animal and organic. The inner
shell is twisted and shaped in such
a way as to form all of the furniture, and all of the service facilities
are centralized in the tower. The two
large and eye-ish bulbs that flank
the tower contain tables, television,
chairs. All of the necessary apparatus
for work and relaxation.
No single communication form, however, is of more interest to Ant Farm than another. They thrive on all forms of media and have made interventions into many fields, from architecture to community planning to the general environment.
Everything is done either in wood or in plastic, but within the framework of the construction it seems almost to assume the aspect of a flow of lava. Everything is articulated around an extremely simple staircase that is also, however, extremely difficult to use. All of the objects that make up the interior decoration of the house are violently colored and they assume the shapes of natural, animal and vegetable forms. The floor of the building, moreover, is edged by a small ditch filled with water and algae, baby alligators and crocodiles.