Chip Lord

Background

Born in 1944, Lord graduated from Tulane University, New Orleans where he received his M.Arch. at The Tulane University School of Architecture in 1968. Lord entered college five years earlier, choosing New Orleans's Tulane because he wanted to major in architecture, the result of a boyhood passion for exploring houses under construction. Lord decided not to go the traditional route after graduation by joining an architecture firm for four years before being able to start his own firm. Doug Michels, who graduated from Yale University in 1967, met Lord while on a college lecture tour during the previous year. Together, they founded the alternative architecture practice Ant Farm, which was later expanded to include Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier.

Lord attributes his education in architecture as a strong foundation for his art making. The training in developing ideas, planning, placing them into action are all skills Lord places into his work, a way of organized thinking. Their inspiration drew upon specifically the events of the year 1968 and focused on the function of the generation and counter culture as a way to reinvent the society created by the generation before them.

Involvement with Ant Farm (1968–1978)

After graduation, Doug Michels was invited to teach at the University of Houston. The year before Michels visited the University on his lecture tour and helped to incite a student rebellion at the School Of Architecture where they effectively ran the dean out of the school. One of the demands was that they bring Michels back to the school to lecture. Michels brought Lord along where they were able to work for a year.

After the University of Houston, the pair moved back to the Bay Area where they set up their alternative practice in a warehouse space in Sausalito.

The purpose of the Ant Farm was to propose a restructuring of architecture education and become more involved with a community opposed to a very rigid traditional method. The group was a self-described "art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection."

This early period was marked by performance pieces and nomadic inflatable structures. Their work interfaced with the prospering environmental movement and mirrored the work of other projects like The Whole Earth Catalog.

Their focus shifted in the early 1970s with the arrival of the Sony Portapak. Their work mirrored the efforts of other artistic groups like Videofreex and TVTV in an effort to democratize the medium of television. Lord states that the time was exciting for them as artists, and as documentarians and community organizers.

The idea for Cadillac Ranch came as an invitation from Stanley Marsh. The Lord, Marquez, and Michels all grew up in the 1950s in America and were interested in the symbolic meaning of the Cadillac. The car represented a combination of 1950s Americana and a symbol of aspirations. This was in the context of the environmental movement and earth art. The piece is a diagram of the rise and fall of the tail-fin and a roadside attraction - thousands have seen it since it was completed in 1974.

The Eternal Frame was done in collaboration with another Bay Area collective, T. R. Uthco (Diane Andrews Hall, Doug Hall, Jody Procter). This videotape, filmed at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, developed out of the groups' dynamic that shared an interest in executing the "forbidden idea". The actors involved rehearsed extensively to ensure verisimilitude, and when they performed the reenactment, it was executed with a striking attention to detail. The collectives had no permits for the piece, but were still able to get multiple takes of the performance. This piece can be seen as a commentary on the pervasive media culture in America, as it explores how the Kennedy assassination itself became a new type of media event. The video was restored in 2003 at BAVC under the direction of Doug Hall (T. R. Uthco) and Chip Lord (Ant Farm) which was necessary considering the frame by frame correction that was needed.

The group disbanded in 1978 after a fire destroyed their warehouse space at Pier 40 in San Francisco, where their practice had moved in 1973.

Post Ant Farm

For Lord, the end of the Ant Farm collective was similar to a rock band breaking up. Lord worked at photography and freelance journalism, but missed the collectivity that came from working with the Ant Farm. Lord then discovered a passion for teaching, beginning as a lecturer in The Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego in 1982, and then moving to the Film & Digital Media Department at UC Santa Cruz in 1988.

"The post-Ant Farm period was a difficult transition for me because of the loss of the support structure that the group provided, both creatively and financially, but this eventually led me to teaching. I thought that maybe teaching would be a similar collaborative process, and in some ways it is. Since I'm still doing it 25 years later, I have to say that university affiliation has worked for me."

Teaching

Lord found the collectivity he was looking for in teaching. He became a professor in the Arts department at University of California, San Diego in 1981 after UCSD wanted to add a position in "video art." After working there on and off for nearly 3 years, he was hired as a full-time professor. Dissatisfied with the town, Lord left San Diego and decided to try out a teaching position at University of California, Santa Cruz for a year. Lord worked in the Theatre Arts department working with students and various film projects and cites the willingness of the students at UCSC to explore new ideas as a reason for staying with the University. Once the Film and Digital Media department was created in Santa Cruz, Lord began teaching various studio and theory classes in the medium. Eventually, Lord became the chair of the department, and still teaches classes such as screenwriting, experimental video, and found footage.

In teaching experimental film and video, Lord focuses on using the first decade of video art as a model to talk about shifting the process of how work is conceived and made.

In teaching found footage, Lord screens numerous examples of the medium from his own personal work to that of Bruce Conner. The students make various projects, including an appropriation and recontextualization of footage from Hollywood and television. Another project requires students to use found footage to create a central theme such as time (and temporality), art that helps the economy, intervention on the status quo, desire, and darkness.

Lord has also participated in lectures at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, Yale University, the USC Art Dept., S.F. Museum of Art, and the Princeton School of Architecture, among others.

As of Spring 2010, Lord will be retiring from his teaching career and plans on continuing his work in film and digital media.

Works

Lord has made pieces for both sitting audiences and video installations with multiple screens. Lord demonstrates interest in how different forms of representational media work function, especially still photographs made on film negatives and video, and he intentionally contrast them in his projects.

Awards

The Aurora Award, presented to the Ant Farm collective.