Behind the Scenes with Negativland

Since 1980, the 4 or 5 guys known as Negativland have been creating records, fine art, video, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sound, image and text. Mixing original materials and music with sources taken from corporately owned mass culture, Negativland re-arranges these bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to.

Negativland definitely isn't a "band," though they may look like one when you see their CDs for sale in your local shopping mall. They're more a goofy yet serious European-style artist/activist collective - an unhealthy mix of John Cage, Lenny Bruce, Pink Floyd, Bruce Connor, Firesign Theatre, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Rauschenberg, 1970's German electronic music, old school punk rock attitude, surrealist performance art, your high school science teacher…and lot's more.

Over the years Negativland's "illegal" collage and appropriation based audio and visual works have touched on many things - pranks, media hoaxes, media literacy, the evolving art of collage, creative anti-corporate activism in a media saturated multi-national world, the bizarre banality of suburban existence, file sharing, intellectual property issues, wacky surrealism, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, artistic and humorous critiques of mass media and culture, and, of course, so-called "culture jamming."

Come out to see Negativland live, part of the TCF's Fall Flurry!!

Craving More? Check out their entire discography or listen to their weekly radio show.

Vintage (and priceless!) Profile of Negativland on NPR's All Things Considered Circa 1988:

In the late 1980's after a teenager used an ax to kill his family, Negativland created an infamous hoax. They circulated a completely fabricated press release proclaiming that their song "Christianity is Stupid" drove the boy to commit the murders. The mainstream media devoured the story, and while the band enjoyed making hay with the press at first, they eventually started feeling bad for adding to the extended family's grief. The group was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered and finally admitted to the hoax. We recommend you listen through to the end of the interview for Negativland's re-edit of the piece in their unique mash-up style.

*Many thanks to TCF's Gwen Macsai for preserving this interview on cassette, over many a decade.

Spanking New Interview with Negativland's Mark Hosler, September 2006:

Mark tells me that most of his printed interviews turn out much blander than the original conversations. He thinks writers trim the good, weirder stuff, and keep the most predictable. But he approves of the following interview: