Since its inception, video art has been the troubled offspring of television, sharing in the same boob-tube technology and industrial-grade aesthetics. Spurred on by a popular resentment of mass media, many video artists took on the Tube as a double duty, to critique crass media and deliver themselves from their pernicious parent. The centerpiece of this critique has long been Ant Farm’s seminal Media Burn, a high-impact performance that propelled a customized Cadillac into a pyramid of burning television sets to sear several incendiary American icons. The Burn will be accompanied by four additional works illustrating the possibilities of media mauling. 

—Steve Seid

Tonight’s program, curated by Steve Seid, is presented in connection with Mind Over Matter: Conceptual Art from the Collection, on view in the BAMPFA galleries through December 23.