'Adventures in Illegal Art': Founding member of Negativland to visit Rowan

Mark Hosler, founding member of the band Negativland, will present a multimedia lecture titled "Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance and Negativland" on Wednesday, Feb. 15, at 7 p.m. in Boyd Recital Hall (Wilson Hall) at Rowan University, 201 Mullica Hill Road, Glassboro.

The event is free and open to the public.

Since 1980, Negativland has created CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sound, images and text. Mixing original materials and original music with works taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, the band creates works that raise questions about the nature of sound, media, propaganda and perception in the United States.

The band was the focus of Craig Baldwin's 1995 feature film, "Sonic Outlaws." In 2004, Negativland worked with Creative Commons to write the Creative Commons Sampling License, an alternative to existing copyrights that is now in widespread use by many artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers and web sites. Band members occasionally serve as citizen lobbyists in Washington D.C. for issues focusing on art, creativity and copyright law.

Negativland has operated "Over the Edge," a weekly radio show in Berkeley, Calif. since 1981. In 1995, the band released a book and CD titled "Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2," which documented their well-publicized four-year legal battle over their 1991 release of an audio piece entitled "U2."

For information on the band, visit www.negativland.com.

For information about the lecture, contact Bill Freind, freind@rowan.edu.