Negativland co-founder will speak at WSUV

Vancouver — An artist with a long résumé in experimental music and intellectual property issues is coming to Vancouver as part of a performance series sponsored by Washington State University Vancouver.

Mark Hosler, co-founder of the sound collage act Negativland and a developer of the Creative Commons, will screen his film “Illegal Art” and speak at 5 p.m. April 27 at North Bank Artists Gallery.

The event, “Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance and Negativland,” takes on the notion of media literacy, the art of audio and visual collage, creative activism in a media-saturated, multi-national world, file-sharing, intellectual property issues, evolving notions of art and ownership, and law in a digital age.

The event is the brainchild of WSUV senior Brian McGovern and faculty member John Barber, who worked for more than a year to bring Hosler to Vancouver.

Hosler and Negativland are famous for being sued by the band U2 for sampling U2’s work, even though U2 extensively used samples of other artists in its own work.

They have contributed much to remix culture for their work with the Creative Commons Sampling License, an alternative to existing copyrights now used by artists. They work for progressive intellectual property rights and participate as “citizen lobbyists” for art, creativity and copyright law.

Following Hosler’s talk, students will share a video and sound performance led by Jackson 2Bears, a creative media and digital culture program artist in residence at WSUV.

North Bank Art Gallery is at 1005 Main St. The event is free. Seating is limited to 100 on a first-come, first-served basis.