The Eternal Frame

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"The Eternal Frame" (1975) is a video piece documenting the reenactment of the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza by a San Francisco-based group of artists called Ant Farm together with T.R. Uthco: Doug Hall, Chip Lord, Doug Michels and Jody Procter. The actors involved rehearsed extensively to ensure verisimilitude, and when they performed the reenactment, it was executed with a striking attention to detail. While part of the video shows that Ant Farm was playing on America's obsession with the media (an actor playing a secret service agent tells a camera, "We've always been worried about Dallas--it's a rough city, a gun city"), ultimately the video shows that the sacred images of the assassination cannot be mocked. 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.