UbuWeb

UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.

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. [Kenneth Goldsmith, "Ubuweb Wants to be Free" Open Letter, 2001 [http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/ubuweb.html] ] 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, "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb", Artforum, March, 2008] It houses and distributes freely the entire archive of the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine project.

Content

Beyond its repository of works, UbuWeb features curated sections including [http://www.ubu.com/ubu/ "/ubu Editions"] book-length editions of contemporary poetry, selected and introduced by the poet Brian Kim Stefans. [http://www.ubu.com/ethno/ "UbuWeb: Ethnopoetics"] curated by Jerome Rothenberg who is fusing the avant-garde with traditional ethnic practices. [http://www.ubu.com/papers/ "UbuWeb: Papers"] a series of contextual academic essays. [http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/ "UbuWeb:Outsiders"] considers the legitimization of Outsider works and features [http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/index.html "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 [http://greylodge.org/gpc/ GreyLodge] , WFMU, PennSound, The Electronic Poetry Center, The Center for Literary Computing and ArtMob.

UbuWeb's board of directors includes the poets Charles Bernstein, Darren Wershler-Henry and critic Marjorie Perloff.

References

External links

* [http://ubu.com/ UbuWeb]
* [http://greylodge.org/gpc/ GreyLodge]
* [http://www.wfmu.org/ WFMU]
* [http://epc.buffalo.edu/ Electronic Poetry Center]
* [http://www.clc.wvu.edu/ The Center for Literary Computing]
* [http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/ PennSound]

Articles

*Damon Krukowski, "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb", Artforum, March, 2008
*Kenneth Goldsmith: [http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/ubuweb.html "UbuWeb Wants to be Free"]
*Kenneth Goldsmith: [http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/if_it_doesnt_exist.html "If It Doesn't Exist on the Internet, It Doesn't Exist"]