More info here.

There's an interesting collection of old friends (and one new one) at this event Tuesday night, so I'm gonna try to make it.

I've known RU for years before we ever started working together (via Ron Turner at Last Gasp, who published the graphic novel I edited for Timothy Leary -- Link to phone message from him about the book that I love to link to :)

Recently, I co-hosted an RU Sirius show last October with guest Dan the Automator w/RU and Jeff Diehl -- and also produced the Songs From the Commons Podcasts from 2006 for RU's Mondoglobo.net.

Meanwhile, I just reconnected with Howard Rheingold last week, after about 4 years (!) and took a nice walk out on Mt. Tamalpias, and talked about Second Life, Twitter and Facebook for two hours (and inspired Howard to increase his twittering i think :-)

BoingBoing's David Pescovitz I know well from the old days with Cory when he lived here in San Francisco, and thus I have not seen David for years - so I can't wait to...and...

Jamais Cascio has been a great twitter friend for a few weeks now that I look forward to finally meeting in person...

Let's see if I can make it out of my cave Tuesday night!

See you there!

I'll be a tonight's Writers with Drinks in the SF Mission tonight.

I'll be taping it and putting it up soon too - but cha really gotta be there in person :-)

See you there!

lisa

Steve's daughter Genevieve is directing a play Saturday night at the Berkeley Rep. The Chronicle gave it a great review in last weeks pinkie.

Doors open at 7:30. Two one-act plays. Joey Buttafuoco is first, then the other one after a 10-minute intermission.
Teen Council's Target® One Acts Festival

Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, 2071 Addison St., Berkeley. $5-$10.
(510) 647-2972 www.berkeleyrep.org

These are from the October 7, 2005 performance at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, CA.

Stephen Kent is a very talented diggery doo artist who also plays a ton of other cool percussion and wind instruments. Paul Horn is a jazz flute player who dabbles in a host of other genres.

These are little 30 second clips taken with my little Casio EX-S3. All I was trying to do was capture the essence of what it sounded like to hear a diggery doo in Grace Cathedral. I was amazed at the quality of the sound.

Stephen Kent At Grace Cathedral

Stephen Kent and Paul Horn together at Grace Cathedral

I know I have a lot of readers in Germany, so I wanted to let you guys know about this rare chance to get a slice of the city by the bay.

As I might have mentioned earlier, Felonius is going to play SCOUT again on the last show June 29th. (Here's video and an mp3 of a track from its May 11 appearance, to give you a taste of these guys.)

In the meantime, Felonius is in Hamburg, Germany, this week, playing a show and performing "Stateless," a hip hop play starring Felonius' Dan Klein. Battle flutist Tim Barsky is with them. His Bright River hip hop play is also performing in Hamburg this week. (Soulati and Infinite from Felonius are also in Bright River.)

I haven't seen "Stateless" yet, but I've seen Felonius and Bright River in action, and I'm sure it's great.

Any of these shows will give you a chance to hear some of the best San Francisco Bay Area beatboxing, mc-ing, and hip hop theatr-ing going on right now.

Sidenote: Bright River is simply a great play, by any theatre-lover's standards. (Like a "go to Jekyll and Hyde with grandma one night, go to Bright River with grandma the next night" great play. Like, "there's no way this thing isn't making it to Broadway" kind of great.)

Here are the details:

Felonius is playing Friday June 10th at the Fabrik
show starts early at 7pm

Stateless (w/Dan Klein) is playing Saturday June 11th at 8pm
and Sunday June 12th at 10pm at the
Monsun Theater (www.monsuntheater.de)

Bright River (Tim Barsky and Carlos and Tommy) plays Saturday June 11th at 10pm at the same place (The Monsun Theater.

I was emailed an invite to this today. I can't make it, but it looked really neat, so I thought I'd let you know about it.
***
Scion Installation art tour this Friday, 6/10/05 Scion presents...

Installation Art Tour

Featuring 35 works by:
David Choe, Crash, Daze, Dr. Revolt, Mear, Fuse Green, Andy Howell, Freddi C, Blaine Fontana, Chase, Stay High 149, Kofie, Saber, Sever, Eklips, Justin Hampton, Swank, Tim McCormick and many more!

Opening reception
Friday, June 10, 2005 6pm-10pm

Live art by Sam Flores
DJ sets by Sake 1 and Hakobo
Artists in attendance: Chase, Fuse Green, Stay High 149 and more

On Six Gallery
60 6th St.
San Francisco, CA
94103

This is from the February 14, 2005 program.

The first bit is more informative than anything else.

The second bit with Stephen Colbert is totally hilarious.

First Daily Show Bit On "The Gates" (9 MB)

Audio - First Daily Show Bit On "The Gates" (MP3 - 6 MB)

Stephen Colbert On "The Gates" (9 MB)

Audio - Stephen Colbert On "The Gates" (MP3 - 6 MB)

My sister, Sierra, has a supporting role in a play down in L.A. over the next few weeks in
"A Mulholland Christmas Carol."

She's always great (and I'm not just saying that because she's my little sister :-),
and she's always in great stage productions! This one's a musical comedy.

Ron Turner of Last Gasp Comix just sent me an invite to this cool book signing going on today in San Francisco. You should come by and check it out if you are so inclined. See you there!

LOWLIFE PARADISE & EYESORE Glenn Barr and Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company This Saturday, September 13, 4-6pm @ VARNISH FINE ART 77 Natoma St. (between 1st & 2nd St. and Mission & Howard) SF CA 94105

And now, a bit about the artists...

Glenn Barr's robots, creatures and vixens live in a seedy yet swinging 1960s universe, drenched in the haze of a post-industrial hangover. Working out of the burgeoning lowbrow movement in Detroit, Barr uses elements of pop culture to infuse familiarity to an otherwise parallel reality, where angels and devils alike share the same urban playground. With a nod to pulp art and cartooning, Barr's paintings are mesmerizing in both their simplicity and depth.

"Lowlife Paradise," co-published with La Luz de Jesus Press, is the first ever collection of Glenn Barr's work. A special edition of the book will be for sale at the signing.

Lowlife Paradise: http://www.lastgasp.com/cgi-bin/results.cfm?author=Glenn%20Barr


The artists of the Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company, aka Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan, have created posters for numerous major rock bands (Pavement, Pearl Jam, the Beastie Boys, Hole, and the Rolling Stones). But they've maintained their street credibility by furnishing posters for such events as Incredibly Strange Wrestling, which mixes punk bands and Mexican wrestlers.

A 100-page full-color book, Eyesore contains a rich sampling of their signature silkscreen technique that blends splendid artistry with impeccable craftsmanship -- an eye-popping collection of the rock and roll posters and ephemera that made this studio famous.

Eyesore: http://www.lastgasp.com/cgi-bin/details.cfm?bookid=19645

The venue: Varnish Fine Art is located in the heart of downtown San Francisco at 77 Natoma Street, between 1st and 2nd St. and Mission and Howard. The gallery has a fine wine, beer and sake bar.

www.varnishfineart.com


www.lastgasp.com

Laura Splan is one of the Illegal Art artists I've been working with making my movie.

Of course, not all the art she creates is illegal. She's got an opening tomorrow night with another artists, Philip Ross.

Hope to see you there.

Artists Presentations - Philip Ross & Laura Splan
Tuesday, August 26, 7:30 pm - Gallery opens at 7 pm

SF Camerawork
@ New Langton Arts
1246 Folsom Street (between 8th and 9th Streets)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Local artists Philip Ross and Laura Splan both make work inspired by life and life science. Whether it's human or non-human life, growth or decomposition, ecosystems or HMO's, each artist works in a variety of media to present provocative work unveiling traits of the world around us. Artist Philip Ross uses living organisms and life support technologies as the inspiration and the means by which he makes his work. This process has yielded a series of highly manipulated living organisms and a number of sculptural structures specifically designed to support, confine and protect them. Laura Splan's work explores how our surroundings and experiences mediate our perceptions of the human body. Believing that interaction with objects can leave a mark on our psyche via their form and function, Splan examines the dynamics of these interactions through visual metaphors, visceral materials, and images that challenge our perceptions of beauty and horror. The artist frequently uses medical science and technology as a point of departure to question categories of what is natural, what is normal, and what is desirable.

Gallery & Bookstore opens at 7 pm
$6/$4 members, students, and seniors

http://www.sfcamerawork.org/events.html

I met a guy from the Capacitor Dance Company in the coffee shop the other day. It sounded kind of cool so I went to check out the website, and it turns out that they have a number of pretty cool videos of their different shows.

They travel around the country, so if you happen to see them performing somewhere in your area, and you're into such things, you might want to check them out (and bring the kids!).

Shows in Oakland, CA August 7-10, 2003
Alice Fine Arts Theatre
14th and Alice
Take the 12st exit off of 980 and head east on 14th to Alice.
Show starts at 8pm
$15

Here's the scoop. (Looks like you'll want to get off at 19th street Bart and walk a few blocks over to 23rd St.)

I L L E G A L A R T L I V E M U S I C

Music performance I: Michael Gendreu (from Crawling with Tarts), RAJAR (David Kwan, Xopher Davidson, Patty Liu, Micheal Gendreau, Bob Boster), and Matt Davignon -- Wednesday, July 9, 8 p.m. 21 Grand, 449B 23rd Street (between Broadway and Telegraph), Oakland. Sliding scale donation of $5-$10 at the door.

The SF Weekly, SF Bay Guardian, Wired News, and
the Alameda Times-Star are all talkin' 'bout the exhibit.

The dynamic duo of Science Fiction (Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross) are writing their next creation, "Unwirer," using a blog to keep track of the process.

The story's already sold. It will be published in ReVisions when it's finished.

Here's how they describe the story:

...is an alternate history in which the copyright industry's 1995 bid at the National Information Infrastructure hearings to redesign the Internet was successful. Now, America labors under a kind of MiniTel hell, where every online transaction costs a few cents and you can only field a website with the phone company's permission. Meanwhile, the French IT giant Be, Inc., has launched a global revolution with the first WiFi AP, and American guerrilla networkers are running through the hills on the US side of the Canadian and Mexican borders, establishing meshed access-points, working to provide end-to-end meshed IP from sea to shining sea.

Here's a clip from the story itself:

He'd lost his job and spent the best part of six months inside before his attorney plea-bargained them down, from a twenty years-to-life infoterrorism stretch to second degree tarriff evasion. The judge sentenced him to time served plus two years' probation, two years in which he wasn't allowed to program a goddamn microwave oven, let alone admin the networks that had been his trade. Prison hadn't been as bad for him as it could have been -- unwirers got respect -- but while he was inside Janice filed for divorce, and by the time he got out he'd lost everything he'd spent the last decade building -- his marriage, his house, his savings, his career. Everything except for the unwiring.

It was this experience that had turned him from a fun-loving geek into what $NAME [[need credible name for Chairman of the FCC]] called "one of the information terrorists undermining our homeland's security." And so it was with a shudder and a glance over his shoulder that he climbed the front steps and put his key in the lock of the house he and Dan rented.

Benefit Concert at Cafe Du Nord on March 28 for the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, featuring:

On the Speakers (Ian Sefchick from Creeper Lagoon)
Black Cat Music (Lookout! Records)
Psychokinetics (Bay Area Hip Hop)

March 28, 9:00 21+
$8 in advance/ $10 at the door
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market St., SF
www.ticketweb.com

The Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal is a national periodical
dedicated to issues and policies of Race and Poverty Law. State budget
reductions have dissolved the Journal's funding, leaving it to be
sustained solely by student contributions and fund raising. Proceeds
from this concert, co-presented by the Hastings Assoc. of Comm., Sports
and Entertainment Law, will go directly to publishing the Journal.

On the Speakers - Since the demise of (the more well-known line-up of)
SF indie darlings Creeper Lagoon, singer/songwriter Ian Sefchick has
taken the high road to LA, collaborating with other San Francisco
natives to form On the Speakers. Spaceland owner Mitchell Frank
described their debut LA show as 'the best freakin' first show I've
ever seen!.' On the Speakers wowed a sold out Noise Pop crowd last
month at the DIW Magazine party, setting the stage for a return trip,
this time headlining the Cafe Du Nord. The man who MTV declared 'must
save guitar rock' is back with younger friends and a tie, ready to give
it another spin.

Black Cat Music - For three years, Black Cat Music has kept Bay Area
audiences wanting more. Those lucky enough to catch a live performance
from this often-elusive band can count on an experience like no other.
With prior bands including the Criminals, the Receivers, Multi Facet,
and the Magnetic, all four members know their way around a stage. But
it's the sum of these four parts that creates such urgent rock and
roll. Black Cat Music speaks to the loss, regret, beauty, and passion
in all of us.

Psychokinetics - Hailing from the astoundingly talented depths of the
Bay Area's independent music scene, Psychokinetics have been moving
crowds with their slumpin' beats, positive vibes, and distinct music
format since 1995. Delivering hip-hop in its most pure and creative
state, this harmonious recipe of two DJs (Denizen and ill Media) and
two Emcees (Celsius 7 and Spidey) provide consistent heat with all the
essential cuts and rhymes you need to satisfy your musical appetite.
Get Ready to Be Moved.

For more information call Dave Kostiner at (415) 305-1695 or Cafe Du
Nord at (415) 861-5016.

Here is the full text of the listing in case the link goes bad:

http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/sfc/eve/9481001.html

craigslist.org > san francisco > events > 3/28: On the Speakers (Ian Sefchick from Creeper Lagoon) in Benefit Concert
last modified: Mon, 17 Mar 19:24

email this posting to a friend
3/28: On the Speakers (Ian Sefchick from Creeper Lagoon) in Benefit Concert
Reply to: anon-9481001@craigslist.org
Date: 2003-03-16, 11:16AM

Benefit Concert at Cafe Du Nord on March 28 for the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, featuring:

On the Speakers (Ian Sefchick from Creeper Lagoon)
Black Cat Music (Lookout! Records)
Psychokinetics (Bay Area Hip Hop)

March 28, 9:00 21+
$8 in advance/ $10 at the door
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market St., SF
www.ticketweb.com

The Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal is a national periodical dedicated to issues and policies of Race and Poverty Law. Proceeds from this concert, co-presented by the Hastings Assoc. of Communications, Sports and Entertainment Law, will go directly to publishing the Journal.

On the Speakers - Since the demise of (the more well-known line-up of) SF indie darlings Creeper Lagoon, singer/songwriter Ian Sefchick has taken the high road to LA, collaborating with other San Francisco natives to form On the Speakers. Spaceland owner Mitchell Frank described their debut LA show as 'the best freakin' first show I've ever seen!.' On the Speakers wowed a sold out Noise Pop crowd last month at the DIW Magazine party, setting the stage for a return trip, this time headlining the Cafe Du Nord. The man who MTV declared 'must save guitar rock' is back with younger friends and a tie, ready to give it another spin.

Black Cat Music - For three years, Black Cat Music has kept Bay Area audiences wanting more. Those lucky enough to catch a live performance from this often-elusive band can count on an experience like no other. With prior bands including the Criminals, the Receivers, Multi Facet, and the Magnetic, all four members know their way around a stage. But it's the sum of these four parts that creates such urgent rock and roll. Black Cat Music speaks to the loss, regret, beauty, and passion in all of us.

Psychokinetics - Hailing from the astoundingly talented depths of the Bay Area's independent music scene, Psychokinetics have been moving crowds with their slumpin' beats, positive vibes, and distinct music format since 1995. Delivering hip-hop in its most pure and creative state, this harmonious recipe of two DJs (Denizen and ill Media) and two Emcees (Celsius 7 and Spidey) provide consistent heat with all the essential cuts and rhymes you need to satisfy your musical appetite. Get Ready to Be Moved.

For more information email Dave Kostiner at hastingsacsel@yahoo.com or Cafe Du Nord at (415) 861-5016.

Here's footage from Cory Doctorow's reading at the Booksmith Wednesday night.

Here he is reading part of the fourth chapter from his new novel, Eastern Standard Tribe.

Audio - Cory Reading EST Ch 4 - All (MP3 - 8 MB)
Audio - Cory Reading EST Ch 4 - Part 1 of 2 (MP3 - 9 MB)
Audio - Cory Reading EST Ch 4 - Part 2 of 2 (MP3 - 9 MB)

For those of you in the SF Bay Area, you might want to check out Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom author Cory Doctorow tonight at The Booksmith on Haight and Cole in San Francisco at 7pm.

I'll be recording it, but I'm sure I won't get it up anytime soon...I'm just swamped!

Here's how to get there .

See you there!

So parts of this stuff I'd like to see happen -- and the rest of it is probably just going to happen anyway...

Cory Doctorow has gives new meaning to the term "Liberation Radio":
Liberation spectrum

The roadhouse was the kind of TAZ that got less entertaining by the second. Lee-Daniel stood in the blinking vegaslights for an eternity while he authenticated to the roadhouse-area-network, surrounded by generic ads while the giant vending machine figured out who he was and what to sell him. Once the wall spat out his token -- poker chips adorned with grinning, dancing anthropomorphic dollar, euro and yen symbols -- the walls around him leapt to delighted life, pitching their wares hard. He struggled with the rest of the corporation to make out the actual nature of the products behind the pitch and locate a tuna-melt and wave his chip at it.

The sandwich appeared in a slot by his feet and when he bent to fetch it, he was bombarded with upsell ads set into the floor tiles: "Lee-Daniel! People who bought tuna-melts also bought thousand-hour power cells. People who bought OralCare mouth kits also bought MyGuts brand edible oscopycams. People who bought banana-melatonin rice-shakes also bought tailormade sailcloth shirts by Figaro's of London and Rangoon."

Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow have written a short story (being published on four parts) that's already considered a classic in my mind.

I've already read the whole thing, and I can't imagine reading this story in pieces -- so I'll re-blog accordingly after all four pieces are up.

I don't want to make any more comments about the subject matter so as not to risk giving any of the story away, but let's just say that since reading this story, I think about meatspace a lot differently now.

I whole heartedly recommend taking ten minutes to treat yourself to a little glimpse of one possible future.

In many ways, we're already there...Jury Service

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.

Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun. Except for the solitary lighthouse beam that perpetually tracks the Earth in its orbit, the system from outside resembles a spherical fogbank radiating in the infrared spectrum; a matrioshka brain, nested Dyson orbitals built from the dismantled bones of moons and planets.

The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander nostalgiawise. When that happens, it casually spams Earth's RF spectrum with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems.

A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden Cox Pippin. There's always someone whom evolution has failed to breed the let's-lick-the-frozen-fencepost instinct out of. There's always a fucking geek who'll do it because it's a historical goddamned technical fucking imperative.

Whether the enlightened, occulting smartcloud sends out its missives as pranks, poison or care-packages is up for debate. Asking it to explain its motives is roughly as pointful as negotiating with an ant colony to get it to abandon your kitchen. Whatever the motive, humanity would be much better off if the Cloud would evolve into something so smart as to be uninterested in communicating with meatpeople.

But until that happy day, there's the tech jury service: defending the earth from the scum of the post-singularity patent office.

I ran into a Graduate Film student from San Francisco State that is looking for two actors for his final film. They need to be 25-30 and hopefully kind of quirky looking (but it doesn't sound like he's going to be too picky about looks, if you can act.)

The dates you would need to be available for shooting are: December 14-15 and 20-22, 2002.

Contact Ari at: Logari@aol.com right this very moment if you're interested. This could be your big chance! (The SF State Film Finals Screening will be seen by a lot of producers and directors -- even a lot of people come up from L.A. to check them out.)

Tell him Lisa sent you :-)

Good luck!

Some of the greatest artistic phenomena in the world (like jazz) would never have been allowed to be created if today's copyright laws had been in existence back then.

What an excellent, timely art exhibit.

Thanks to Kendra Mayfield for writing such a great story for Wired News about it:
Art: What's Original, Anyway?

If current copyright laws had been on the books when jazz musicians were borrowing riffs from other artists in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators were creating cartoons in the 1940s, entire art genres such as hip-hop, collage and Pop Art might never have existed...

To acknowledge this landmark case, an exhibit will celebrate "degenerate art" in a corporate age: art and ideas on the fringes of intellectual property law.

The exhibit, Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age, will take place in New York from Nov. 13 to Dec. 6 and in Chicago from Jan. 25 to Feb. 22.

"Almost all art, to a certain extent, is unoriginal," said Carrie McLaren, publisher of Stay Free! magazine and organizer of the exhibit. "(In) an environment where you can have free exchange of ideas, you get better art."

Here's the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://r.hotwired.com/r/wn_html_link/http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55592,00.html

Art: What's Original, Anyway?
By Kendra Mayfield
Win a 50" HDTV or a Xerox Printer!

Print this • E-mail it

Notmickey (Pen, paper, and photocopies; 2002) The Symbolic Lotus of A Thousand Colonels Meet the Residents (LP Cover; 1974) In 1974, a mysterious band called the Residents released its first full-length LP with a cover that parodied Meet the Beatles. When rumors circulated that Capitol, the Beatles' record label, was threatening to sue, the band decided to repress the LP with new artwork. How Mao (Sewn U.S. currency; 2002) Mao is one of a series of 20th century masterpieces that Beldner recreated using U.S currency. Although Beldner has not been sued, he has been threatened by artists' estates for appropriating their work, most notably, Pablo Picasso's. This particular piece is based on Andy Warhol's silkscreen. American Alphabet (Installation; 2000) The letters shown here are from corporate logos. So far Cody has not had any legal troubles. Ad agencies have even purchased parts of the Alphabet.
Click thumbnails to expand Images from various sources

2:00 a.m. Oct. 10, 2002 PDT

If current copyright laws had been on the books when jazz musicians were borrowing riffs from other artists in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators were creating cartoons in the 1940s, entire art genres such as hip-hop, collage and Pop Art might never have existed.

The debate over whether artists can use copyrighted materials entered the national spotlight this week as the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a case in which plaintiffs are seeking to overturn the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act.

To acknowledge this landmark case, an exhibit will celebrate "degenerate art" in a corporate age: art and ideas on the fringes of intellectual property law.

The exhibit, Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age, will take place in New York from Nov. 13 to Dec. 6 and in Chicago from Jan. 25 to Feb. 22.

"Almost all art, to a certain extent, is unoriginal," said Carrie McLaren, publisher of Stay Free! magazine and organizer of the exhibit. "(In) an environment where you can have free exchange of ideas, you get better art."

The show will examine the intersection between intellectual property and the First Amendment. Some pieces have been the focus of court battles, while others have eluded copyright lawyers.

Digital rights activists argue that creativity is under assault with the recent passage of laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Current copyright laws discourage the creation of new works, McLaren said. For example, filmmakers typically screen anything that appears on camera for copyright violations.

"That effectively makes filmmaking off limits for anyone who's not a millionaire," McLaren said.

Some digital rights advocates believe that Eldred v. Ashcroft could shift the balance of power.

"The fact that the Supreme Court is taking this case is a major opportunity for this discussion," McLaren said. "It shows that the court is concerned about the First Amendment implications of copyright."

Timed with the exhibit's opening in November, a panel discussion at New York University will focus on some of the aspects of using and archiving artworks that appropriate copyrighted or trademarked material.

"Understanding the sociopolitical implications of the current copyright regime is of particular concern at this time," said Meg McLagan, an assistant professor of anthropology at NYU, "given the challenges posed by corporate attempts to limit access to works that should be moving into the public domain." McLagan is the panel's moderator.

Exhibit organizer McLaren hopes Illegal Art will "wake people up" to restrictive copyright legislation. "When people see this exhibit they won't want to support the laws that make this type of work illegal," she said.

The exhibit surveys a variety of mediums -- from collage to audio and film -- and includes pieces that flout intellectual property law by violating copyrights or infringing on trademarks.

The visual art exhibit, viewable online, features murdered Disney characters, a parody of the Starbucks logo and a painting of a lace doily that incorporates the Texaco logo.

The exhibit's site also highlights illegal films and videos that appropriate others' intellectual property through the use of found footage, unauthorized music, or shots of copyrighted or trademarked material.

1 of 2 Next

Art: What's Original, Anyway?
Win a 50" HDTV or a Xerox Printer!

2:00 a.m. Oct. 10, 2002 PDT

(page 2)

Site visitors can also download illegal MP3s, including recycled lyrics from 2 Live Crew's parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" and Vanilla Ice's 1990 hit "Ice Ice Baby," which borrowed the main riff from David Bowie and Queen's song "Under Pressure."

The site includes links to audio works by experimental music and art collective Negativland, longtime advocates of the concept of fair use since the group was forced to cease performing and distributing a parody of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in 1995.

Since the early '90s, "these issues have become more and more mainstream," said Mark Hosler, one of Negativland's founding members.

Groups like Negativland have felt the repercussions of the digital copyright wars. In 1998, Negativland's CD manufacturer refused to press the band's latest album because of concerns over the inclusion of unlicensed samples.

"It really has impacted us very directly," Hosler said. "It seems like the content owners don't care any more about what we're doing. But in terms of getting (CDs with samples) manufactured, that's the problem."

A compilation CD of music featuring plundered hits by Negativland, Public Enemy, John Oswald and other artists will be given away free at Illegal Art events in New York and Chicago.

The free CD, which includes several tracks that were sued out of existence, could create some legal entanglements of its own.

But the exhibit's organizers insist that its material is fair game.

"Since we're criticizing and educating about this, we think it falls under fair use," McLaren said. "We wanted to have more discussion and debate about this. We're not just throwing this stuff out there."

I met a bunch of cool comics, poets and writers last weekend at Charles Ander's Writers With Drinks spoken word variety show at San Francisco's Cafe Du Nord.

Heather Gold gave an awesome and spontaneous stand-up performance with lots of uncomfortable political material I don't even feel comfortable repeating in print :-)

Analee Newitz had some insightful thoughts on the rather fundamental differences between stem cell cloning and human cloning.

I also bought books by performers Daphne Gottlieb (Why Things Burn) and Lynn Breedlove (Godspeed).

More on them later...

Anyway, if you're in San Francisco, my advice to you is to check out the next Writers With Drinks on July 13th at the Cafe Du Nord...

What a great time I had this week at SXSW! I met a lot of great people (I'll be blogging their sites all week) and learned a ton of stuff about things I always wanted to know about.

More on this later as I attempt to catch up on the last four days of notes!

I'm actually still in Austin hanging around to check out some interesting panels at the Music portion of the conference on Saturday.

Blogger is still being a royal pain in the butt and it's reminding me why I'm on the verge of switching over to Moveable Type. (Hint Hint Evan!)