Lecture, Performance

Of mythical stature in the worlds of music, performance and law, Negativland comes to New York with a film/performance/lecture presentation by one of its four members, co-founder Mark Hosler.

Negativland bills itself as a “goofy yet serious artist/activist collective of filmmakers, culture jammers, and musicians, in short an unhealthy mix of John Cage, Pink Floyd, Abbie Hoffman, 1970’s German electronic music, and old school punk rock attitude.” For over two decades, Negativland has not just touched on critical issues but has actually provoked (and in court defended) them: concepts that are today very much in the public eye such as intellectual property issues, file sharing, media literacy, the art of collage, creative activism in a media-saturated multinational world, evolving notions of art and ownership, and law in a digital age. Adventures in Illegal Art features Mark Hosler as the enigmatic anchor showing Negativland’s films in a video formatted lecture that is engaging, provocative as well as thoughtful. Negativland becomes a subliminal culture sampling service concerned with making art about everything we aren’t supposed to notice.

Participant 
Mark Hosler, founding member of Negativland, artist, activist

This event is presented as part of the Vera List Center’s program cycle on “The Public Domain.”