It has been recently called to my attention the existence of an internet site called UbuWeb, under the domain www.ubu.com, an internet archive of experimental and avant-garde short films. It was founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith and began as an archive for poetry, and has since evolved to include several other art forms, including film. These shorts come from a variety of sources and are usually very hard to find outside of this context. Among them one can find works from filmmakers such as Lars von Trier, Agnes Varda, Maya Deren, Jacques Demy, Brian De Palma, Steven Soderbergh, Steve McQueen, Rene Clair, Andy Warhol, Gaspar Noé, Stan Brakhage, Sergei Parajanov, Ken Jacobs, Olivier Assayas, Stan van der Beek, and many, many more. There are also works from plastic artists such as Marcel Duchamp, adaptations of works by writers such as James Joyce or Franz Kafka, and interviews with important thinkers such as Jacques Lacan. In short, there is a little everything for anyone’s taste. But here’s the catch: UbuWeb is not an official archive, their whole collection has been put together through means that are not exactly legal. That’s why scholars call it an “anarcho-archive”. Of course this makes the whole concept problematic, and that brings a huge debate to the table.

As you can imagine, there are lots of people that are against what UbuWeb does. They are deliberately ignoring copyright laws and don’t ask for the permission of artists for the distribution and reproduction of their work, and they don’t give them revenue for it either. What directly makes it hard to “enjoy”, at least from the public’s perspective, is that the shorts on display don’t exactly have the best video quality. The reason for this is quite obvious when you realize that they are not official copies from the original works, Ubu gets their hands on whatever bootlegged version they can find. Among those detractors there are many artists that don’t want their work to be shown on their website, many of which have taken active meassures to take them down, but not for the reasons you may think. From what I understand its not a money issue, but rather because of the aforementioned quality problems: the authors are not happy that their works are being reproduced in less than ideal conditions than what they intended.

Of course, there’s always another side to the argument. First of all, UbuWeb isn’t getting any money from the distribution of shorts, so its not a matter of greed-oriented piracy. The reason why they do what they do is to help such works and artists reach a much wider audience. Take into account that most of the shorts are not commercial films that you may some day see in a movie theater, but rather experimental and artistic video arts that may be presented in a handful of museums and/or galleries, if lucky. That means that probably more than 90% of the people that might be interested in such works will never get to see them in such contexts. That’s when Ubu comes along: the conditions might be less than ideal and the means of acquisition might be questionable, but through the internet they are taking all these pieces of art and making them available worldwide. Even many of the artists whose works have been pirated and distributed without their permission later agree and allow Ubu to present them on their site. Just think about it: beyond the big names I mentioned earlier, there are literally hundreds of other artists and filmmakers that don’t have neither the recognition nor international pedigree, whose works will maybe get shown in a few galleries over limited periods of time, afterwards he gallery replaces them with new work and they’re probably never mentioned or thought of again. Yet, through UbuWeb there’s the possibility that millions of people around the globe get the see their projects, a reach that they probably never thought they’d get.

Their philosophy is basically to put these artworks out there and make it available to as many people as possible, so more of those people get interested in avant-garde art in general and particular artists, so they can on their own seek out these artists themselves and then purchase their works by legal means or attend official exhibitions where they are to be projected. Of course, that is not always the case. They do not encourage the unauthorized usage of these works, even if they have a download option available. That’s where the ambiguity plays a role again. Detractors will cite the illegality of their means, their infrictions of copyright, and the low video quality due to it all not being official. Either way, Ubu does provide a platform for many lesser known artists to be known around the world and reach a wider audience, and for audiences who may not have the means to attend exhibitions in high end art galleries to meet and get interested in artworks they may not find otherwise. Its all a very interesting debate with many arguments to each side, so I’ll let you decide for yourself what you think about all these. Oh, and by the way, UbuWeb also distributes other types of art besides film, including experimental poetry, experimental sounds and soundscapes, experimental dance, etc., and it offers other resources such as podcasts and magazines. Think what you will about their means and ethics, but you’ve gotta give to them that they are a group of very dedicated people.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found that interesting. Please leave a like and share this would your family and friends, its of big help. And if you’d like to stay up to date with the contents of this blog don’t forget to hit that follow button. Until next time!