STAND BY FOR FAILURE: A NEGATIVLAND DOCUMENTARY

Ryan Worsley / United States / 2022 / Czech Premiere / 99 min.

synopsis

A look at 40 years of subversive work by the American collective Negativland. Would you go to jail for your work? They say they never had a hit single, but they had a hit lawsuit. Negativland's media collages, which predated the web-sharing era from the late 1970s onwards, resulted in a single called U2. The group documented the court-imposed punishment in such a way as to create a spectacular artefact, and a narrative about the moral standards around copyright and intellectual property. “Media is coming into our homes: its images and sounds flow into our living rooms. So I consider them mine – and I want the right to dispose of them,” says Negativland member Don Joyce.

biography

Ryan Worsley (born 1976) is a DIY documentary filmmaker with experience in graphic design, UX design and teaching. She studied Cinematography and Film/Video Production at RISD in Providence. In her work, she often reconstructs and recontextualizes fragmented found footage.