Re:TheAshLad - Sandbooks

e thus. shortcircuiting our over stimulated attention system. They
became. famous because of a legal challenge which dragged them into
a bizarre. sentence of which they tell the story in their book ''Fair Use
The. story of the letter U and the numeral ' where they also explain the.
techniques applied here. In the band issued on the SST label a. single
which had 'U' over almost all of the cover with a U spy. plane in the
background and the name 'Negativland' in small print. while the vinyl
contained two parodies with seconds of a sample of. 'I Still Haven't
Found What I'm Looking For'. Sales figures were not. above the
average for the group's other products i.e. . copies. against the millions
sold soon afterwards of 'Zooropa' the next. album by U themselves.
'Island' U's label at the time demanded. all available copies be
destroyed and . in damages which. Negativland agreed to pay because
they could not afford the costs of. a trial.. The serious economic
repercussions of an episode of this kind became. the symbol of a battle
in which the only weapons available are irony. and sarcasm applied to
the production of culture and transmitted via. a dense network of
exchanges. Negativland became a sort of icon for. the free use of sound
samples and continued their valuable artistic. and political work which
is halfway between art and propaganda. They. also supported other
campaigns such as 'Toywar Lullabies' an album. issued in by the Etoy
group of artists in an attempt to get back. the etoy.com domain which
had been taken away by a large toy company.. Their core idea is that
'copyright came from the idea that people who. create have to be
properly paid for what they do not that they have. get every possible
payment that derives from it' and as Don Joyce. one of the members of
the band says 'any fragmentary use of someone. else's work should be
absolutely free' (). This is one reason why. net artists .ORG asked
Negativland to compose a piece. for their project 'Glasnost' intended to
put out as much public data. uses samples of a month of private phone
calls between the artists. and others who were unaware of what was
happening and brings to the. fore all the uncertainties everyone has
concerning the invasion of. privacy. Other artists are also aware of the
experimental potential. of sampling and use it to compose such as
Canadian John Oswald who. has received the attention of lawyers
representing a major record. company. His sound collages are full of
rapidly changing sequences of. such famous sacred figures as James
Brown and especially Michael. Jackson and the artistic quality of his
editing is never in doubt.. His own definition of this style is
'plunderphonics' i.e. 'audio. piracy as a compositional prerogative'.
32