Negativland / Donna Summer

Negativland incorporates fragments of previously published music into their compositions and is vilified by copyright representatives for this method, while being hailed as heroes by like-minded people. Negativland ‘steals’ other people's music, but transforms it into something that the group considers to be a more honest statement. Negativland takes the view that refusing to be original in the traditional sense is the only way to create art with depth in the world of commodity capitalism... Their manifesto: All art is based on creative theft, and collage is attractive precisely because it pushes reuse to the limit while remaining original.

Donna Summer (New York)

The fact that New York musician Jason Forrest produces and performs under the project name DJ Donna Summer says it all. Not only does he love to perform as a ‘black lady,’ but the disco queen of the 1970s also has a major influence on his current music. On his albums, he mixes many different musical styles, but always returns to 1970s pop: For example, he uses music by Pink Floyd, Elo (Electric Light Orchestra), Supertramp and Joe Jackson and transforms it with happy hardcore, breakbeats, abstract, electronica, techno, breakcore, electro-acoustics, death metal and raw Satanism into an idiosyncratic innovation, a ‘masterpiece of bastard pop’, as has already been written in reviews.

Donna Summer's school in studio work was and is the radio. For many years, he has had his own radio show on the well-known New York radio station WFMU – Advanced D & D Radioshow, where he plays his special mix of different music styles from the last 30 years, as well as presenting live acts and interviews with important representatives of the DJ scene.