Info via SMFA.edu…

Craig Baldwin (born 1952) is an American experimental filmmaker. He uses “found’ footage from the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from the mass media to undermine and transform the traditional documentary, infusing it with the energy of high-speed montage and a provocative commentary that targets subjects from intellectual property rights to rampant consumerism. Playful and ironic, his cut-and-paste collage-essay surveys the prospects for an “electronic folk culture” in the midst of an increasingly commodified corporate media landscape.

We will be showing Sonic Outlaws (1995) prefaced by a special performance by Baldwin. Sonic Outlaws focuses on the controversy surrounding the band Negativeland who had gotten into trouble for violating copyright laws when they sampled a U2 song. The documentary is put together from footage of interviews with a wide variety of Baldwin’s fellow media jammers and raises questions about the validity of the current system of controlling intellectual property.

“Collage is the contemporary art. It is the most definitive. Yet it runs absolutely against copyright laws…”