Media About Media About Media: The Negativland Story
There is a common thread among certain bands, such as Devo, The Residents and Negativland. Each has approached the notion of a band in unique ways, in a sense redefining what we think of as a band. Ea…
Media About Media About Media: The Negativland Story
There is a common thread among certain bands, such as Devo, The Residents and Negativland. Each has approached the notion of a band in unique ways, in a sense redefining what we think of as a band. Each have had critical success in their own way. Each of these groups deconstructs song structure, creating beautiful mind-bending alternatives. These bands use technology as an experimental canvas, where new and older electronics act as brushes. They are as versed in musicality, as well as, multimedia, theater and film. The most important thread among these groups is longevity, each has existed for over 37 years and have never steered from the path of celebrating the unusual for the success associated with commercialism. I was first introduced to the band when Mark Hosler and Ian Allen approached me after I had just come off stage performing with my band Problemist. This was circa 1982 and a very different world. A year later I started Unsound magazine and Negativland were featured in a number of articles. Fast forward, many years later, and I am making documentaries: The Negativland project is born. With a project of this scope it was important to find a collaborator, and soon Leah Gold and I were working together. Leah and I both relish difference, strangeness and come from an outlier culture. We also both understand the historical significance of Negativland. Since 1980, the 4 or 5 or 6 Floptops known as Negativland, a performance and recording group based in the San Francisco Bay Area, have been creating records, CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sounds, images, objects, and text. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In doing this kind of cultural archaeology and "culture jamming" (a term they coined way back in 1984), Negativland have been sued twice for copyright infringement. Over the years Negativland's "illegal" collage and appropriation-based audio and visual works have touched on many things - pranks, media hoaxes, advertising, media literacy, religion, the evolving art of collage, the bizarre banality of suburban existence, creative anti-corporate activism in a media-saturated and multi-national world, file sharing, intellectual property issues, wacky surrealism, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, and artistic and humorous observations of mass media and mass culture. While it is true that, after being sued, Negativland became more publicly involved in advocating significant reforms of our nation's copyright laws (more recently finding themselves being brought to Washington DC and Capitol Hill as citizen lobbyists for copyright and art issues), Negativland are artists first and activists second. All of their art and media interventions have intended to pose both serious and silly questions about the nature of sound, media, control, ownership, propaganda and perception in the United States of America. Their work is now referenced and taught in many college courses in the US, has been written about and mentioned in over 150 books (including "No Logo" by Naomi Klein, "Media Virus" by Douglas Rushkoff, and various biographies of the band U2), cited in legal journals, and they often lecture about their work here and in Europe. —William Davenport
Media About Media About Media: The Negativland Story
Documentary
Film Details
There is a common thread among certain bands, such as Devo, The Residents and Negativland. Each has approached the notion of a band in unique ways, in a sense redefining what we think of as a band. Each have had critical success in their own way.
Each of these groups deconstructs song structure, creating beautiful mind-bending alternatives. These bands use technology as an experimental canvas, where new and older electronics act as brushes. They are as versed in musicality, as well as, multimedia, theater and film.
The most important thread among these groups is longevity, each has existed for over 37 years and have never steered from the path of celebrating the unusual for the success associated with commercialism. I was first introduced to the band when Mark Hosler and Ian Allen approached me after I had just come off stage performing with my band Problemist. This was circa 1982 and a very different world.
A year later I started Unsound magazine and Negativland were featured in a number of articles. Fast forward, many years later, and I am making documentaries: The Negativland project is born. With a project of this scope it was important to find a collaborator, and soon Leah Gold and I were working together.
Leah and I both relish difference, strangeness and come from an outlier culture. We also both understand the historical significance of Negativland. Since 1980, the 4 or 5 or 6 Floptops known as Negativland, a performance and recording group based in the San Francisco Bay Area, have been creating records, CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sounds, images, objects, and text.
Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In doing this kind of cultural archaeology and "culture jamming" (a term they coined way back in 1984), Negativland have been sued twice for copyright infringement. Over the years Negativland's "illegal" collage and appropriation-based audio and visual works have touched on many things - pranks, media hoaxes, advertising, media literacy, religion, the evolving art of collage, the bizarre banality of suburban existence, creative anti-corporate activism in a media-saturated and multi-national world, file sharing, intellectual property issues, wacky surrealism, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, and artistic and humorous observations of mass media and mass culture.
While it is true that, after being sued, Negativland became more publicly involved in advocating significant reforms of our nation's copyright laws (more recently finding themselves being brought to Washington DC and Capitol Hill as citizen lobbyists for copyright and art issues), Negativland are artists first and activists second. All of their art and media interventions have intended to pose both serious and silly questions about the nature of sound, media, control, ownership, propaganda and perception in the United States of America. Their work is now referenced and taught in many college courses in the US, has been written about and mentioned in over 150 books (including "No Logo" by Naomi Klein, "Media Virus" by Douglas Rushkoff, and various biographies of the band U2), cited in legal journals, and they often lecture about their work here and in Europe.
—William Davenport.