UbuWeb
{{short description|Digital poetry library}}
{{Infobox website
| name = UbuWeb
| url = {{URL|www.ubu.com}}
| commercial = no
| type = Digital library
| registration = none
| language = English
| editor = Kenneth Goldsmith
| current_status = Online
}}
UbuWeb is a "a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts." It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.{{Cite web|url=https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/ubuweb-the-20-year-old-website-that-collects-the-forgotten-and-the-unfamiliar.html|title=This Totally Weird, 20-Year-Old Website Collects the Forgotten and the Unfamiliar|first=Jacob|last=Brogan|date=December 23, 2016|website=Slate Magazine}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=22g0BwAAQBAJ&q=ubu+web&pg=PA189|title=Digital Arts: An Introduction to New Media|first1=Cat|last1=Hope|first2=John Charles|last2=Ryan|date=June 19, 2014|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=9781780933238|via=Google Books}} The site was created by poet Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996 to provides web-based educational resources to "a substantial user base."{{cite web |title=About UbuWeb |url=https://ubu.com/resources/about.html |website=ubu.com |access-date=6 April 2025}} 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."{{cite web |title=About UbuWeb |url=https://ubu.com/resources/about.html |website=ubu.com |access-date=6 April 2025}}
In January 2024, UbuWeb announced it was no longer active, posting: "As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active.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.".{{Cite web |title=UbuWeb |url=http://www.ubu.com/ |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240128213308/http://www.ubu.com/ |archive-date=2024-01-28}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Kirn |first=Peter |date=2025-02-06 |title="All rivers lead to the same ocean": UbuWeb, pirate shadow library, is back |url=https://cdm.link/ubuweb-lives/ |access-date=2025-02-25 |website=CDM Create Digital Music |language=en-US}}
Philosophy
UbuWeb was founded in response to the marginal distribution of crucial avant-garde material. It remains non-commercial and operates on a gift economy.{{cite web |last1=Goldsmith |first1=Kenneth |title=Ubuweb Wants to be Free (Open Letter) |url=http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/ubuweb.html |website=Electronic Poetry Center |publisher=State University of New York at Buffalo |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020312021029/http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/ubuweb.html |archive-date=2002-03-12 |date=2001}} 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
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.Damon Krukowski, "[http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/artforum.html Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb]", Artforum, March 2008 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….”{{cite book|first=Kenneth|last=Goldsmith|title=Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb|publisher=Columbia University Press|publication-place=New York|page=243|isbn=9780231186957|year=2020}}
Content
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
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.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.ubu.com/ UbuWeb]
- [https://ubu-mirror.ch/ UbuWeb Mirror Site]
- Damon Krukowski, [https://www.artforum.com/columns/kenneth-goldsmith-and-ubuweb-187588/ "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb"], Artforum, March 2008
- Kenneth Goldsmith: [http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/goldsmith/ubuweb.html "UbuWeb Wants to be Free"]
- Kenneth Goldsmith: [http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/goldsmith/if_it_doesnt_exist.html "If It Doesn't Exist on the Internet, It Doesn't Exist"]
- [https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/ubuweb-the-20-year-old-website-that-collects-the-forgotten-and-the-unfamiliar.html 2016 profile from Slate Magazine]
Category:Internet properties established in 1996
Category:American literature websites
Category:Non-profit organizations based in the United States