Kenneth Goldsmith: If We Had To Ask For Permission We Wouldn’t Exist: A Brief History of UbuWeb Friday 15th November 7pm

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Kenneth Goldsmith: If We Had To Ask For Permission We Wouldn’t Exist: A Brief History of UbuWeb

Friday 15th November  2013, 7pm
A talk giving an overview of UbuWeb (ubu.com), the largest site on the internet dedicated to the free access of avant-garde materials. Hosting over 20,000 artworks by more than 5,000 artists, the site has been running for 18 years on no money. Almost all of the artworks on the site are unpermissioned. How is it possible? UbuWeb ignores copyright, pretending it doesn’t exist. And it’s worked: the site has never been sued; instead, it has become a revered institution in many artistic fields. By doing everything wrong, we’ve done everything right. This talk will focus primarily on UbuWeb’s audio section with a discussion about the evolving nature of the audio artifact in the digital age.

Kenneth Goldsmith is an American poet. He is the founding editor of experimental audio archive UbuWeb, teaches Poetics and Poetic Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and is Senior Editor of PENNsound. He hosted a weekly experimental radio show at WFMU and has published ten books of poetry, notably Fidget (2000), Soliloquy (2001) and Day (2003) and Goldsmith’s American trilogy, The Weather (2005), Traffic, (2007) and Sports, (2008). In 2013, he was appointed the Museum of Modern Art’s first Poet Laureate.

Kenneth Goldsmith’s talk is presented by nyMusikk in association with Oslo Poetry Festival.