ARCHIVE

The experimental sound collective, Negativland, has been deconstructing media since its inception in the late 1970s. Originally comprised of members Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons, David Wills, Chris Grigg, and Don Joyce, Negativland makes an art of dissecting the sounds and images of mass media, reconstructing and recontextualizing these materials to reveal the hidden messages within. As Lyons notes in an interview with Rolling Stone, “I spend more time in thrift stores than anyone. I like to collect a lot of old records, spoken word records, and we all collect tapes. Don spends more time recording stuff off TV and radio.”

Their breakthrough album, Escape from Noise, released in 1987 is both a commentary and a shout back at the sheer volume of media (radio, television, and print) that overwhelms our senses, a noise so pervasive that we passively accept its message. The media theorist Marshall McLuhan was fond of telling the story of two young fish swimming past an older fish. The older fish asks, “How’s the water boys?” and goes on his way. A few minutes later, perplexed, one fish looks at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?”

Through the collection, manipulation, and juxtaposition of materials lifted from the media landscape, Negativland sheds a light on the deluge of media in which we find ourselves submerged. One cut in particular which provides a bit of clarity is Time Zones, a collage of diverse elements combining documentary voice overs, shortwave radio broadcasts, amateur radio conversations, automated time beacons, and talk radio call-in programming. From this mix arises the zeitgeist of the 1980s: fear of the Soviet Union, American exceptionalism, the militant standardization of time, the fetish of technology, and a somewhat Freudian preoccupation with size. - Introduced by Jason Geistweidt.