UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a digital library of freely downloadable avant-garde art, film, music as well as visual, concrete and sound poetry. The site includes mp3 archives of early internet and sound art. The site was created by poet Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996 to provide web-based educational resources to "a substantial user base." In the book Duchamp is my Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb, Goldsmith notes that "it’s hard to say exactly who these users are since we don’t keep tabs on them." In January 2024, UbuWeb announced it was no longer active, posting: "As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active. The archive is preserved for perpetuity, in its entirety". In February 2025 the site resumed its activities, citing the "political changes in America and elsewhere around the world" as a reason to be active again.
Type of site | Digital library |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Editor | Kenneth Goldsmith |
| URL | www.ubu.com |
| Commercial | no |
| Registration | none |
| Current status | Online |
UbuWeb is a digital library of freely downloadable avant-garde art, film, music as well as visual, concrete and sound poetry. The site includes mp3 archives of early internet and sound art.[1][2] The site was created by poet Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996 to provide web-based educational resources to "a substantial user base."[3] In the book Duchamp is my Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb, Goldsmith notes that "it’s hard to say exactly who these users are since we don’t keep tabs on them."[4]
In January 2024, UbuWeb announced it was no longer active, posting: "As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active. The archive is preserved for perpetuity, in its entirety".[5] In February 2025 the site resumed its activities, citing the "political changes in America and elsewhere around the world" as a reason to be active again.[6]
Philosophy
[edit]UbuWeb was founded in response to the marginal distribution of crucial avant-garde material. It remains non-commercial and operates on a gift economy.[7] UbuWeb ensures educational open access to out-of-print works that find a second life through digital art reprint while also representing the work of contemporaries. It addresses problems in the distribution of and access to intellectual materials.
Distribution policy
[edit]UbuWeb does not distribute commercially viable works but rather resurrects avant-garde sound art, video and textual works through their translation into a digital art web environment - re-contextualising them with current academic commentary and contemporary practice.[8] It houses and distributes freely the entire archive of the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine project. In 2020, Kenneth Goldsmith wrote in his book Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of Ubuweb that “Perhaps no collection of audio inspired UbuWeb more than the Tellus cassettes….”[9]
Content
[edit]Beyond its repository of works, UbuWeb features curated sections including /ubu Editions book-length editions of contemporary poetry, selected and introduced by the poet Brian Kim Stefans. UbuWeb: Ethnopoetics, curated by Jerome Rothenberg, fused the avant-garde with traditional ethnic practices. UbuWeb: Papers is a series of contextual academic essays. UbuWeb:Outsiders considers the legitimization of Outsider works and features The 365 Days Project curated by Otis Fodder.
Infrastructure
[edit]UbuWeb is not affiliated to any academic institution, instead relying on alliances of interest and benefiting from bandwidth donations from its partnerships with GreyLodge, WFMU, PennSound, The Electronic Poetry Center, The Center for Literary Computing, and ArtMob.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Brogan, Jacob (December 23, 2016). "This Totally Weird, 20-Year-Old Website Collects the Forgotten and the Unfamiliar". Slate Magazine.
- ^ Hope, Cat; Ryan, John Charles (June 19, 2014). Digital Arts: An Introduction to New Media. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9781780933238 – via Google Books.
- ^ "About UbuWeb". ubu.com. Retrieved 6 April 2025.
- ^ "About UbuWeb". ubu.com. Retrieved 6 April 2025.
- ^ "UbuWeb". Archived from the original on 2024-01-28.
- ^ Kirn, Peter (2025-02-06). ""All rivers lead to the same ocean": UbuWeb, pirate shadow library, is back". CDM Create Digital Music. Retrieved 2025-02-25.
- ^ Goldsmith, Kenneth (2001). "Ubuweb Wants to be Free (Open Letter)". Electronic Poetry Center. State University of New York at Buffalo. Archived from the original on 2002-03-12.
- ^ Damon Krukowski, "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb", Artforum, March 2008
- ^ Goldsmith, Kenneth (2020). Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 243. ISBN 9780231186957.
External links
[edit]- UbuWeb
- UbuWeb Mirror Site
- Damon Krukowski, "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb", Artforum, March 2008
- Kenneth Goldsmith: "UbuWeb Wants to be Free"
- Kenneth Goldsmith: "If It Doesn't Exist on the Internet, It Doesn't Exist"
- 2016 profile from Slate Magazine
- ubu.wiki Federated resource for mirroring content sourced from ubu web, such as Bruce Nauman's "Good Boy, Bad Boy," presented as a multi-channel sequence of presentation in a single-page browser application. Part of viki.wiki farm; view original.