backlit in Goldsmith 2011
s not all off-beat: there is, in all fairness, lots of primary expressions
of artists’ works which port to the web perfectly: [the films of Hollis
Frampton](http://ubu.com/film/frampton.html), [readings by Alain Robbe-
Grillet](http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/audio5B.html#jealousy), [Samuel
Beckett radio plays](http://www.ubu.com/sound/beckett.html), [the concrete
poems of Mary Ellen Solt](http://ubu.com/historical/solt/index.html), [the
writings of Maurice Blanchot](http://ubu.com/ubu/blanchot_last_man.html) and
the [music of Meredith Monk](http://www.ubu.com/sound/monk.html), to name a
few.
UbuWeb began in 1996 as a site focusing on visual and concrete poetry. With
the advent of the graphical web browser, we began scanning old concrete poems,
astonished by how fresh they looked backlit by the computer screen. Shortly
thereafter, when streaming audio became available, it made sense to extend our
scope to sound poetry, and as bandwidth increased we later added MP3s as well
as video. Sound poetry opened up a whole new terrain: certain of [John Cage’s
readings](http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage.html) of his mesostic texts could be
termed “sound poetry,” hence we included them. As often, though, Cage combined
his readings with an orchestral piece; we included those as well. But soon, we
found ourselves unable to distinguish the difference between “sound poetry”
and “music.” We encountered this dilemma time and again whether it was with
the compositions of [Maurico Kagel](http://www.ubu.com/sound/kagel.html),
[Joan La Barbara](http://www.ubu.com/sound/lab.html), or [
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