ABSTRACT
The destruction of the master recording of the performance ensured that Burden, who had engaged own documentarians, would be the sole possessor of all images of his act, which had probably only been seen by a few incidental viewers. Burden intended to destroy the evidence of the pieces he discussed with Lutjeans—those he was not allowed or not willing to do—so that only would retain a record of them and thereby control the content and messaging surrounding them. For that reason, Chris Burden’s TV Hijack is known to posterity as a demonstration of a media hijacking carried out within the realm of fine art and aesthetics, in addition to on live cable TV, rather than a terrorist act. By taking the media hijacking one step further and destroying all record of the attack, Burden thus maintained control over the final product in ways that other terrorists had not yet been able to accomplish.
