Saturday, May 13, 2006

Negativlandland Exhibit

May 14, 2006
Well, its been a big week here in Minneapolis. Starting last week at the Rogue Buddha Gallery where I had the honor of DJing at the opening for "4 (four)." At one point, someone came up and said they'd just overheard someone saying that I was the best DJ they had ever heard! Of course, I didn't take credit for the mashups I was playing that night. If one person could mix live what several dozen individuals took countless hours to first dream up and then actualize, well then - that would be the best DJ ever. It was just fun to get people dancing!

The real fun though, was helping to hang the Negativlandland show, with Mark Hosler and the gang at Creative Electric Studios. I just started a new day job, so had my evenings free - and spent about every other night there this week, helping to get everything hung exactly right. Here's a picture of the opening, where you can see some of the work (which by the way, hang exactly two inches from eachother), right behind Mr. Hosler there in the foreground.

Earlier this week, I was pleased to invite Mark Hosler, along with Dave Salmela of Creative Electric Studios, down to Radio K for a rare live episode of Some Assembly Required. I'm getting ready to upload that to the podcast this week, so stay tuned for a recording of a LIVE interview with Mark Hosler of Negativland, talking about their art show, and their recent work. We even play a bit from an as yet unreleased CD of recordings done by Negativland fans - a group (the 180-G's) doing covers of Negativland songs. Its a lot better than it sounds - believe me - and the track we play isn't even (in my opinion) the best example on the disc (though it is Mark's favorite).

Here's a blurry photo of Mark, live in the studios at KUOM...

Chuck Olsen conducted his own video interview with Hosler, one afternoon this week at Creative Electric Studios. Its split into two parts at the mnstories website. The first section shares a bit about the art exhibition, and then briefly explores how (in the 1980's) Negativland heard about a news story which took place in Rochester, Minnesota, and used it to make a point about the fallibility of the news media. A trick they would of course repeat in different ways, again and again. The second section provides some insight into the band's connection with Creative Commons and their collaboration with that organization, in creating a new sampling license. Very nice work!

You can hear more about these subjects and more in my previous interview with Hosler, if you go back and download episode 90 of Some Assembly Required (it was podcast April 23, 2006). And stay tuned for the live interview with Mark Hosler (and Dave Salmela) - recorded last Saturday, April 6, on Radio K - which will be uploaded as this week's podcast, in just a few. And after that, I promise to focus on something else! As much as I admire the group's work, and as fun as it was getting to know Mark this week, I think even he would agree that we've focused enough on Negativland for awhile, and it would be good to move on...

So stay tuned for this week's podcast, and check out the Creative Electric website for more info about the show (which runs through June 10, by the way - gallery hours are Saturdays, 11-4PM).

Here's a photo taken at Psycho Suzi's after the opening on Friday. Pictured are (L-R) Jenny Adams and Dave Salmela (Creative Electric), Mark Hosler (Negativland), myself and Phil Harder (Harder/Fuller Films). Photo courtesy of Simon Peter Groebner - thanks Simon! And thanks to Creative Electric and Mark Hosler for a great time on the 12th...

Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net

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