Nomadic Experiments: Ant Farm Inflatables

Left to right: Doug Michels, Hudson Marquez, Betsy Ross Edison, Ben Holmes,
and Randy Eberle with Media Van, Los Angeles (1971), 2011
Archival digital print, 24 x 36 in
Courtesy Chip Lord

Art Farm was an experimental architecture and new media-based collective founded in San Francisco in 1968. Collective members believed both architecture and media could be created by anyone using cheap, readily available materials and skills taught ad hoc from one person to another. They created inflatable environments at numerous happenings, schools, conferences, and festivals, notably the Rolling Stones’ free concert at Altamont.
In 1970, Ant Farm toured the nation in a Chevy van outfitted as a mobile television studio, taping their journey and demonstrating their inflatables at various stops along the way. In contrast to a sedentary lifestyle and mainstream, broadcast news, Antfarm’s mobility facilitated fresh sensory input and allowed for direct connection with many different people. According to founding Ant Farm member Chip Lord, the media van and inflatables exemplified “a larger theme in the counterculture of nomadics, constantly moving but somehow making community out of that process.”


Lord has uploaded a number of Ant Farm videos to Vimeo, including this 5 minute excerpt from Media Burn, 1975.

Media Burn (excerpt) from Chip Lord on Vimeo.

If you want to learn how to make your own Ant Farm-inspired inflatable, the Inflatocookbook is exactly what you need. There is a copy of the Inflatocookbook in the exhibition, or you can browse a scanned version online.

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