Sollfrank & Goldsmith
The Poetry of Archiving
2013
Kenneth Goldsmith
The Poetry of Archiving
Berlin, 1 February 2013
[00:12]
Kenneth Goldsmith: The type of writing I do is exactly the same thing that I
do on UbuWeb. And that’s the idea that nothing new needs to be written or
created. In fact, it's the archiving and the gathering and the appropriation
of preexisting materials, that is the new mode of both writing and archiving.
[00:35] So you have a system where writing and archiving have become the
identical situation today.
[00:43]
UbuWeb
[00:47]
It started in 1996, and it began as a site for visual and concrete poetry,
which was a mid-century genre of typographical poetry. I got a scanner, and I
scanned a concrete poem. And I put it up on Ubu, and on those days the images
used to come in as interlaced GIFs, every other line filling in. So really it
was an incredible thing to watch this poem kind of grow organically. [1:21]
And it looked exactly like concrete poetry had always wanted to look – a
little bit of typographical movement. [1:27] And I thought, this is perfect.
And also, because concrete poetry is so flat and modernist, when it was
illuminated from the back by the computer screen it looked beautiful and
graphic and flat and clean. [1:40] And suddenly it was like: this is the
perfect medium for concrete poetry. Which, I do worry still, is very much a
part of Ubu. [1:50] And then, a few years later real audio came, and I began
to put up sound poetry, you know, little sound files of sound poetry. So you
could look at the concrete poetry and listen to the sound poetry. [2:07] And a
few years later we had a little bit more bandwidth, and we began to put on
videos. So this is the way the site grew. [2:16] But also what happened on Ubu
was an odd thing. Because it was concrete poetry, so I put up the poems of
John Cage – the concrete mesostics of John Cage. And then I got a little bit
of sound of John Cage reading some of these things, and suddenly it was Cage
reading a mesostic with an orchestra behind him. [2:40] And I said, wait a
minute, this no longer sound poetry, this is something else. And I thought,
what is this? And I said, ah, this is avant-garde.
[2:50] And so from there, because of Cage and Cage's practice, the whole thing
became a repository and archive for the avant-garde, which it is today. So
that's how it moved from being specifically concrete poetry in 1996, to today
being all avant-garde.
[3:09]
Avantgarde
[3:15]
[3:30] And then something happened in the digital, where it seemed to... All
of that fell off. Because we already knew that. [3:42] So it was an orphan
term. It became detached from its nefarious pre-digital context. And it was an
open term. [3:51] I was like, we can actually use this term again, avant-
garde, and redefine it as a way of, you know, multi-media, impurity,
difference, all sorts of ways that it was never allowed to be used before. So
I've actually inhabited this term, and repurposed it. [4:15] So I don't really
know what avant-garde is, it's always changing. And UbuWeb is an archive that
is not pure avant-garde. You look at it and say, no, things are wrong there.
There's rock musicians, and there's performance artists, and there's
novelists. [4:33] I mean, it doesn't quite look like the avant-garde looked
before the digital. But then, everything looks different after the digital.
[4:41]
Selection / curation
[4:46]
I don't know anything. I am a poet. I'm not a historian, I'm not an academic.
I don't know anything, I've just got a sense: that might be interesting, that
sort of feels avant-garde. I mean, it is ridiculous, it's terrible: I am the
wrong person to do this. But, you know, nobody stopped me, and so I've been
doing it. You know, anybody can do it. [5:11] It's very hard to have something
on Ubu, and that's why it's so good. That's why it's not archive-type of work,
where everything can go, and there're good things there, but there is no one
working as a gatekeeper to say, actually this is better than that. [5:26] And
I think one of the problems with net culture, or the web culture, is that
we've decided to suspend judgment. We can't say that one thing is better than
another thing, because everything is equal. There's a part of me that really
likes that idea, and it creates fabulous chaos. But I think it is a sort of a
curatorial job to go in and make sense of some of that chaos. In a very small
way, that's what I try to do on UbuWeb. [5:52] You know, it's the avant-garde,
it's not a big project. It's a rather small slice of culture that one can have
a point of view. I'm not saying that's right. It's probably very wrong. But
nobody else it's doing it, so I figured, you know… [6:12] But by virtue of the
fact that there's only one UbuWeb, it's become institutional. And the reason
that there is only one UbuWeb is that UbuWeb ignores copyright. And everybody
else, of course, is afraid of copyright. There should be hundreds of UbuWebs.
It is ridiculous that there's only one. But everybody else is afraid of
copyright, so that nobody would put anything on. [6:41] We just act like
copyright doesn't exist. Copyright, what's that? Never heard of it.
[6:48]
Contents
[5:52]
I think that these artifacts that are on UbuWeb are very valuable historically
and culturally, they are very significant. But economically, I don't think
they had that type of value. And I love small labels that try to put these
things out. But they inevitably loose money by trying to put these things out.
So when somebody does put something out, sometimes things on Ubu get released
from a small label, and I take them off the site, because I want to support
those things. [7:28] But it's hard, and people are not doing it for the money.
Nobody ever got into sound poetry or orchestral avant-garde music for the
money. [7:37] So it's kind of a weird lovely grey area that we've been able to
explore, a utopia, really, that we've been able to enact. Simply because the
economics are so sketchy.
[7:55]
Copyright
[7:59]
I am not free of fear, but I've learned over 17 years, to actually have a very
good understanding of copyright. And I have a very good understating of the
way that copyright works. So I can anticipate things. I can usually negotiate
something with somebody who, you know… [8:26] There's so many stories when
copyright is being used as a battering tool. It's not real. I had one instance
when a very powerful literary agency in New York… I received a cease and
desist DMCA Takedown, which I require a proper takedown. It was for William S.
Burroughs, and the list went on for pages and pages and pages. And then, at
the end, it says, "Under the threat of perjury, I state these facts to be
true," signed such and such person. [9:05] Now, what they did, they went into
UbuWeb and they put the words "William S. Burroughs," and they came up with
every instance of William S. Burroughs. If William S. Burroughs is mentioned
in an academic paper: that's our copyright. Nick Currie Momus wrote a song "I
Love You William S. Burroughs.” Now, Nick gave UbuWeb all of his songs. I know
that Nick owns the copyright to that. [9:30] I said, you know, it's
ridiculous! And even the things that they were claiming… It was the most
ridiculous thing. [9:37] So I wrote them back. I said: Look, I get what you're
trying to do here, but you're really going about it the wrong way. It's very
irresponsible just putting his name in the search engine, cutting and pasting,
and damn you own the copyright. You don't own the copyright to almost any of
that! And as a matter of fact, under law you perjured yourself. And I can came
right back and sue you, because this is a complete lie. But I said, look, lets
work together. If there's something that you feel that you really do own and
you really don't want there, let's talk about it, but could you please be a
little bit more reasonable. [10:13] And then of course I got a letter back,
and it's an intern, the college student saying, the state of William S.
Burroughs just asked me… [10:23] I said, look, I get it but, you know… let’s
try to do it the right way and let's see what happens. And then they came back
with another DMCA Takedown, with a much shorter list. But even in that list,
most of the copyrights didn't belong to William S. Burroughs. They belonged to
journal poetry systems, many of them were orphan. [10:45] Because in media,
often if you publish in a publication, often the publisher owns the copyright,
not the artist, you know. You have to look and see where the copyright
resides. [10:59] Finally, I said, look this is getting ridiculous. I said,
please send a note on to the executor of Burroughs' estate, who is James
Grauerholz, and he's a good guy. He's a good guy. And I said, I quoted, and I
said, look Mr. Grauerholz, William S. Burroughs' poetry wants to be free. You
know, and I quoted from Burroughs. And also it's a great thing that Burroughs
said. I said, you know, we're not making any money here. I'm not going to
pirate Naked Lunch. I know where are you making your money, and I swear I
wouldn't want to touch that. That does well on its own. [11:30] But his cut-
ups, his sound collage cut-ups? I mean, came on, no. This is for education.
This is for, you know, art schools, kindergartens and post-graduates use it.
[11:40] So this was a way in which copyright is often used as a threat, that's
not true. And then, a little bit of talking, and you can actually get back to
some logic. And then after that it was fine, and there's all the William S.
Burroughs that's there that it was always there. And everybody seems to be
okay.
[11:57]
Opt-out System
[0:12]
Things get taken down all the time. People send an email saying, you know, I
don't want that there. And I try to convince them that we don't touch any
money. Ubu runs on zero money, we don't touch any. I try to tell them that is
good, it's all feeling good, positive. [12:19] But sometimes people really
don't want their work up. And if they don't want their work up, I take it
down. An opt-out system. Why should I keep their work up if they really don't
want it there? [12:30] So it's an unstable archive. What's there today may not
be there tomorrow. And I kind of like that too.
[12:38]
Permission culture
[12:42]
I understand people get nervous. They would prefer me to ask. But if I ask, I
couldn't have built this archive. Because if you ask, you start negotiations,
you make a contract, you need lawyers, you need permissions. And if something
has... a film has music in the background by the Rolling Stones, you have to
clear the right for the Rolling Stones and pay that a little bit of money. And
you know, licenses... I couldn't do that. I do this with no money. That would
take millions… [13:14] To do UbuWeb permission, the right way, correctly,
would take millions of millions of euros. And I built this whole thing from
nothing. Zero money. [13:26] So, you know... I think I'd love to be able to
ask for permission, do things the right way. It is the right way to do things.
But it wouldn't be possible to make an archive like this, that way.
[13:40]
Cornelia Sollfrank: How much does it happen that you are approached by artists
who say, please put my work down?
[13:47]
Almost never, almost never. It's usually the estates, art dealers, the
business people, you know, who are circling around an artist. But it's almost
never artists themselves. Artists, you know... I don't know, I just think
that… [14:07] For example, we have the music concrete of Jean Dubuffet on
UbuWeb. Fantastic experimental music. And it's so great that many people now
know of a composer named Jean Dubuffet, and later they hear: he's also a
painter. Which is really very beautiful. [14:33] Now, the paintings of Jean
Dubuffet, of course, sell for millions. And the copyright, you know... You can
make a T-shirt with a Jean Dubuffet painting, they're going to want a license
for that. [14:44] But the music of Jean Dubuffet, the estate doesn't quite
understand the value of it, or what to do with it. And this is also what
happened with my Warhol book. [14:56] Before I did my Warhol book, I went to
the Warhol Foundation, because it's big money, and you don't want to get in
trouble with those guys. And I said to them, I want to do a book of Andy's
interviews. I know that they don't own the copyright, I just wanted their
blessing, from them. And they were really sweet. They laughed at me. They
said, you want Warhol's words? Take them! We are so busy dealing with
forgeries, well, you know, exactly what your piece was about. And they laughed
at me. They were like, have fun, it's all yours, glad, go away. [15:32] So I
kind of feel, if you ask Jean Dubuffet, I would assume that Dubuffet
understood that his music production was as serious as his paintings. And this
is the sort of beautiful revisionism of the avant-garde. This is a perfect
example of the revisionism of the avant-garde that I'm talking about. You say,
oh, you know, he was actually as good of a composer as he was a painter.
[15:58] So, you know, this is the kind of weird thing that's happened on
UbuWeb, I think. [16:04] But what's even better, is that UbuWeb, you know... I
care about Jean Dubuffet, or I care about Art Brut, and the history of all
that. [16:14] But usually what happens is, kids come into UbuWeb and they know
nothing about the history. And they’re usually kids that are making dance
music. But they go, oh, all these weird sounds at this place, lets take them.
And so they plunder the archive. So you have Bruce Nauman, you know, "Get out
of my life!" on dance floors in São Paulo, mixed in with the beat. And that to
me is the misuse of the archive that I think is really fantastic.
[16:48]
Technical infrastructure
[16:53]
It's web 1.0. I write everything in HTML, by hand. Hand-coded like I did in
1996, the same BBEdit, the same program.
[17:04]>
C.S.: But it's searchable.
[17:06]
Yea, it's got like a dumb, you know, a little free search engine on it, but I
don't do anything. You see, this is the thing. [17:15] For many, many years
people would always come up to me and say, we'd like to put UbuWeb in a
database. And I said no. It’s working really well as it is. And, you know,
imagine if Ubu had been locked up in some sort of horrible SQL database. And
the administrator of the database walks away, the guy that knows all that
stuff walks away with the keys – which always happens. No… [17:39] This way it
is free, is open, is simple, is backwardly compatible – it always works.
[17:45] I like the simplicity of it. It's not different than it was 17 years
ago. It's really dumb, but it does what it does very well.
[17:54]
Search engines
[17:58]
I removed it from Google. Because, you know, people would have set a Google
alert. And it was mostly the agents, or the estates that would set a kind of
an alert for their artists. And they didn't understand, they think we're
selling it. And it creates a lot of correspondence. [18:20] This is a lot of
work for me. I never get paid any money. There's no money. So, there's
nothing, you know... It's my free time that I'm spending corresponding with
people. And once I took it off from Google it got much better.
[18:33]
Copyright practice
[18:37]
Nobody seemed to care until I started to put film on, and then the filmmakers
went crazy. And so, that was something. [18:47] There was a big blow-up on the
FrameWorks film list. Do you know FrameWorks? It's the biggest avant-garde
film list – Listserv. And a couple of years ago Ubu got hacked, and went down
for a little while. And there was a big celebration on the FrameWorks list.
They said, the enemy is finally gone! We can return to life as normal. So I
responded to them. [19:14] I wrote an open letter to FrameWorks (which you can
actually find on UbuWeb) challenging them, saying, actually Ubu is a friend of
yours. I'm actually promoting your work for no money. I love what you do. I'm
a fan. There's no way I'm an enemy. [19:31] And I said, by the way, if you are
celebrating Ubu being down, I think it's a perfect time for you to now built
Ubu the way it should have been. You guys have all the materials. You are the
artists, you have all the knowledge. Go ahead and do it right, that would be
great. You have my blessing, please do it... Shut them down. Nobody ever
responded. Suddenly the thread died. [20:00] Nobody wants to do anything. It's
kind of, they considered it right to complain, but when asked to... They have
the tools to do it right. I'm a poet, what do I know about avant-garde film?
They know everything. But when I told them, please, you know, nobody's going
to lift a finger. [20:18] It's easier for people to complain and hate it. But
in fact, to make something better is something that people are not going to
do. So life went on. It went up and we moved on.
[20:32]
Un/stable archives
[20:36]
If you work on something for an hour a day for 17 years – 2 hours, 3 hours –
you come up with something really substantial. [20:45] The web is very
ephemeral, and UbuWeb is just as ephemeral. It’s amazing that it's been there
for as long as it has, but tomorrow it could vanish. I could get sued. I could
get bored. Maybe I just walk away and blow it up, I don't know! Why do I need
to keep doing all this work for? [21:03] So if you find something on the
Internet that you loved, don't assume it's going to be there forever. Download
it. Always make your own archive. Don't ever assume that it's waiting there
for you, because it won't be there when you look for it.
C.S.: In the cloud…
Fuck the cloud. I hate the cloud.
Goldsmith
If We Had To Ask for Permission We Wouldnt Exist: An Open Letter to the Frameworks Community
2010
To the Frameworks Community,
I have been reading your thread on UbuWeb's hacking on the list with great
interest. It seems that with a few exceptions, the list is generally positive
(with reservations) about Ubu, something that makes me happy. Ubu is a friend,
not a foe.
A few things: first of all, Ubu doesn't touch money. We don't make a cent. We
don't accept grants or donations. Nor do we -- or shall we ever -- sell
anything on the site. No one makes a salary here and the work is all done
voluntarily (more love hours than can ever be repaid). Our bandwidth and
server space is donated by universities.
We know that UbuWeb is not very good. In terms of films, the selection is
random and the quality is often poor. The accompanying text to the films can
be crummy, mostly poached from whatever is available around the net. So are
the films: they are mostly grabbed from private closed file-sharing
communities and made available for the public, hence the often lousy quality
of the films. It could be done much better.
Yet, in terms of how we've gone about building the archive, if we had to ask
for permission, we wouldn't exist. Because we have no money, we don't ask
permission. Asking permission always involves paperwork and negotiations,
lawyers, and bank accounts. Yuk. But by doing things the wrong way, we've been
able to pretty much overnight build an archive that's made publically
accessible for free of charge to anyone. And that in turn has attracted a
great number of film and video makers to want to contribute their works to the
archive legitimately. The fastest growing part of Ubu's film section is by
younger and living artists who want to be a part of Ubu. But if you want your
works off Ubu, we never question it and remove it immediately; it's your work
after all. We will try to convince you otherwise, but we will never leave
anything there that an artist or copyright holder wants removed.
Ubu presents orphaned and out-of-print works. Sometimes we had inadvertently
host works that are in print and commercially available for a reasonable
price. While this is strictly against our policy, it happens. (With an army of
interns and students and myself the only one in charge, it's sometimes hard to
keep the whole thing together.) Then someone tells us that we're doing it and
we take it down immediately and apologize. Ouch. The last thing Ubu wants to
do is to harm those who are trying to legitimately sell works. For this
reason, we don't host, for example, any films by Brakhage: they're in print
and affordable for anyone who wants them on DVD or through Netflix. Fantastic.
[The "wall of shame" was a stupid, juvenile move and we removed a few years
ago it when we heard from Joel Bachar that it was hurtful to the community.]
Some of the list members suggested that we work with distributors. That's
exactly what's starting to happen. Last winter, Ubu had a meeting with EAI and
VDB to explore ways that we could move forward together. We need each other.
EAI sent a list of artists who were uncomfortable with their films being
represented on Ubu. We responded by removing them. But others, such as Leslie
Thornton and Peggy Ahwesh insisted that their oeuvres be on Ubu as well as on
EAI. [You can see Leslie Thorton's Ubu page
here](http://ubu.com/film/thornton.html) (all permissioned).
Likewise, a younger generation is starting to see that works must take a
variety of forms and distributive methods, which happen at the same time
without cancelling each other out. The young, prominent video artist Ryan
Trecartin has all his work on Ubu, hi-res copies are distributed by EAI, The
Elizabeth Dee Gallery represent his work (and sells his videos there), while
showing in museums around the world. Clearly Ryan's career hasn't been hurt by
this approach. [You can see his Ryan Trecartin's Ubu page
here](http://ubu.com/film/trecartin.html) (all permissioned).
Older filmmakers and their estates have taken a variety of approaches.
[Michael Snow](http://ubu.com/film/snow.html) contacted Ubu to say that he was
pleased to have some of his films on Ubu, while he felt that others should be
removed. Of course we accommodated him. Having two permissioned films from
Michael Snow beats hosting ten without his blessing. We considered it a
victory. In another case, the children of [Stan
VanDerBeek](http://ubu.com/film/vanderbeek.html) contacted Ubu requesting that
we host their father's films. Re:Voir was upset by this, saying that we were
robbing his children of their royalties when they in fact had given the films
to us. We put a link to purchase DVDs from Re:Voir, regardless. We think
Re:Voir serves a crucial function: Many people prefer their beautiful physical
objects and hi-res DVDs to our pile of pixels. The point is that there is much
(understandable) suspicion and miscommunication. And I'll be the first to
admit that, on a community level, I've remained aloof and distant, and the
cause of much of that alienation. For this, I apologize.
In terms of sales and rentals ("Ubu is bad for business"), you'd know better
than me. But when [Peter Gidal](http://ubu.com/film/gidal.html) approached Ubu
and requested that his films be included in our archive, we were thrilled to
host a number of them. I met Peter in NYC a few months ago and asked him what
the effect of having his films on Ubu had been. He said, in terms of sales and
rentals, it was exactly the same, but in terms of interest, he felt there was
a big uptick from students and scholars by virtue of being able to see and
study that which was unavailable before. Ubu is used mostly by students and in
the classroom. Sadly, as many of you have noted, academic budgets don't
generally provide for adequate rental or projection money. I know this
firsthand: my wife, the video artist [Cheryl
Donegan](http://ubu.com/film/donegan.html) \-- who teaches video at two
prominent East Coast institutions -- is given approximately $200 per semester
(if that) for rentals. Good luck.
This summer, Ubu did a [show at the Walter Reade
Theater](http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/fcssummer/ubuweb.html) at Lincoln
Center in NYC. I insisted that we show AVIs and MP4s from the site on their
giant screen. They looked horrible. But that was the point. I wanted to prove
the value of high-resolution DVDs and real film prints. I wanted to validate
the existence of distributors who make these types of copies available. Ubu's
crummy files are a substitute, a thumbnail for the real thing: sitting in a
dark from with like-minded, warm bodies watching an enormous projection in a
room with a great sound system. Cinema, as you know too well, is a social
experience; Ubu pales by comparison. It will never be a substitute. But sadly,
for many -- unable to live near the urban centers where such fare is shown,
trapped by economics, geography, career, circumstance, health, family, etc. --
Ubu is the only lifeline to this kind of work. As such, we believe that we do
more good in the world than harm.
An ideal situation happened when UbuWeb was asked to participate in a
[show](http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/intermission) at the CCA in Montreal. The CCA
insisted on showing hi-res films, which they rented from distributors of
materials that Ubu hosts. We were thrilled. By having these materials
available to be seen on Ubu, it led to rental fees for the artists and income
for the distributors. It was a win-win situation. This Ubu working at its
best.
Finally, I don't really think it's good for me to join the list. I'm not well-
enough versed in your world to keep up with the high level of conversation
going on there. Nor do I wish to get into a pissing match. However, I can be
contacted [here](http://ubu.com/contact) and am happy to respond.
It think that, in the end, Ubu is a provocation to your community to go ahead
and do it right, do it better, to render Ubu obsolete. Why should there only
be one UbuWeb? You have the tools, the resources, the artwork and the
knowledge base to do it so much better than I'm doing it. I fell into this as
Ubu has grown organically (we do it because we can) and am clearly not the
best person to be representing experimental cinema. Ubu would love you to step
in and help make it better. Or, better yet, put us out of business by doing it
correctly, the way it should have been done in the first place.