MMoCA Cinema | Stand By for Failure: A Negativland Documentary

Negativland, a culture jamming collective from California’s Bay area, has been creating recordings and live performances using appropriated sounds, images, objects, and text since 1980. Their complex chaos of plunderphonics poses both serious and silly questions about the nature of sound, media, technology, control, propaganda, power and perception in America. Filmmaker Ryan Worsley surveys Negativland’s history including their “Over the Edge” KPFA-FM broadcasts in the 1980s, their fair use copyright battles with U2 and Island Records in the 1990s, and their multi-location live-streamed performances during the recent pandemic.