The Return of UbuWeb
After last year’s announcement that UbuWeb will no lover be active, “As of 2024, UbuWeb is no longer active. The archive is preserved for perpetuity, in its entirety.” - we’re glad an update was published on the website on February 1, stating the necessity to restart and and regrow the website.
February 1, 2025
A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elsewhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It's now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.
Last year’s announcement didn’t make it to mainstream news, but it was a reminder that perhaps there’s only so much one person can do to maintain an online archive of avant-garde and experimental art. Founded in 1996 by Kenneth Goldsmith, it might be a considered a miracle it even lasted that long.
That UbuWeb’s end has gone so far unreported isn’t surprising. Though a regular user of the site, the miniature announcement only caught my eye ten weeks’ after being uploaded. And it feels fitting that the world forgets to write an obituary for the home of the neglected and the strange. In March last year I emailed Goldsmith regarding a podcast that was listed on the UbuWeb, for which the hyperlink led nowhere. He responded the next day: “I guess the podcasts are lost to the dusts of time. Another reason to remember that if you love something, it’s best to download it. Things don’t stay on the Internet forever, sadly.” via https://writeratlarge.substack.com/p/goodbye-ubuweb
From a post on Twitter made in December 2024:
“Don’t bookmark. Download. Hard drives are cheap. Fill them up with everything you think you might need to consult, watch, read, listen to, or cite in the future.” #UbuWeb - Kenneth Goldsmith.
I’m glad UbuWeb is back, the internet has not been a democratic or reliable archival space to for a while. We need more sites like UbuWeb that think about and treat archives as records of memory and history, and not just nostalgic online ‘content’ and to decorate your social media account.
The following text from 2016 is a good reminder on how best to do this:
For all accounts and purposes, something like Ubu should not exist. A single person, Kenneth Goldsmith, using no money whatsoever, has created the single-most important archive of avant-garde and outsider art. Works that have played an important role in cultural history, or could play in the future, have been collected, organized and made available to anyone, with no restrictions, just the friendly reminder to respect the works.
In a world of money-crazed start-ups and surveillance capitalism, copyright madness and abuse, Ubu represents an island of culture. It shows what a single person, with dedication and focus, can achieve.
There are lessons to be drawn from this:
Keep it simple and avoid constant technology updates. Ubu is plain HTML, written in a text-editor.
Even a website should function offline. One should be able to take the hard disk and run. Avoid the cloud - computers of people you don't know and who don't care about you.
Don't ask for permission. You would have to wait forever, turning yourself into an accountant and a lawyer.
Don't promise anything. Do it the way you like it.
You don't need search engines. Rely on word-of-mouth and direct linking to slowly build your public. You don't need complicated protocols, digital currencies or other proxies. You need people who care.
Everything is temporary, even after 20 years. Servers crash, disks die, life changes and shit happens. Care and redundancy is the only path to longevity.