Stand By for Failure: A Documentary About Negativland

Screening Support: Independent Film Festival Boston 

Early in the career of Bay Area experimental musicians Negativland, Mark Hosler recalls declaring, “Let’s just pretend we’re a band.” Using the safe familiar concept of “a band” as cover for their culture-jamming mayhem, the multimedia collective went on to test the limits of composition, sound, and copyright laws, while gathering more members and ardent fans along the way.

Filmmaker and frequent Negativland collaborator, Ryan Worsley has amplified, expanded, and recontextualized sounds and images from the band’s 40-plus year career into a documentary that breaks free of the typical Behind the Music narrative. Pulling from a wealth of recordings, home movies, performances, news reports, interviews, and intercepted radio signals, Stand By for Failure is a riptide collage of media about media about media.