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 1 
 Philosophy 

 2 
 Distribution policy 

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 Infrastructure 

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 References 

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 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Digital avant-garde art library

 For the film collective, see Ubu Films . For other uses, see Ubu (disambiguation) .

 UbuWeb Website   type

 Digital library 

 Available   in
 English

 Editor
 Kenneth Goldsmith 

 Website
 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 In January 2024, UbuWeb announced it was no longer active, posting: "As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active.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 ] 

 Digital library 

 Internet art 

 Avant-garde 

 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 .

 Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UbuWeb&oldid=1376132245 "

 Categories : Experimental film organizations 
 Internet properties established in 1996 
 American literature websites 
 Non-profit organizations based in the United States 
 Art websites 
 Audiovisual ephemera 
 Arts organizations established in 1996 
 1996 establishments in the United States 

 Hidden categories: Articles with short description 
 Short description is different from Wikidata 
 CS1: unfit URL 

 This page was last edited on 22 September 2026, at 06:39  (UTC) .

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