From 6b734488643a01e5deff655518ae315c031498f7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tomislav Medak Date: Wed, 22 May 2024 05:45:24 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Update content/mirror/ubu.md --- content/mirror/ubu.md | 34 ++++++++++++++-------------------- 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/mirror/ubu.md b/content/mirror/ubu.md index 6b047be..27367e6 100644 --- a/content/mirror/ubu.md +++ b/content/mirror/ubu.md @@ -1,36 +1,30 @@ +++ title = "Stage: Everything Is Temporary" glassblowers = ["alessandroludovico.md", "cristobalsciutto.md", "custodiansonline.md", "dusanbarok.md", "felixstalder.md", "marcellmars.md", "nickthurston.md", "olgagoriunova.md", "sanjabojanic.md", "sasasavanovic.md", "sreckohorvat.md", "tomislavmedak.md"] -has_reflections = ["accidental-neighbors.md", "alternative-infromation-ecologies.md", "archiveapocalypse.md", "autonomous-archive.md", "barbarianlibrary.md", "closingwindowopendoor.md", "decapitated.md", "endtimes.md", "homelandlessparasite.md", "interdependentarchives.md", "material.md", "relational.md", "variations.md"] +has_reflections = ["alternative-infromation-ecologies.md", "archiveapocalypse.md", "autonomous-archive.md", "barbarianlibrary.md", "closingwindowopendoor.md", "decapitated.md", "endtimes.md", "homelandlessparasite.md", "interdependentarchives.md"] +++ +# Ubu@50 – 50 Ubus -# Ambient +UbuWeb (ubu.com) is arguably the largest web archive of avant-garde art. In 2021 Ubu turned 25. For about the same time the Internet has been a mass medium on a global scale, the US American conceptual artist Kenneth Goldsmith has alone, using the simplest HTML code, collected, organized and made available to anyone otherwise inaccessible works of experimental cinema, video art, contemporary theatre and concrete music. Years before museums and archives had started to digitize the collections from their vaults, Ubu made possible the discovery of works that have played an important role in cultural history, or could play that role in the future. However, in the present times of digital platforms, dataveillance and copyright, control valuable archives such as Ubu can disappear overnight. In 2024 Ubu has ceased adding new items to its collection and transformed into an archive preserved hopefully in perpetuity. -First, we are building an ambient, a (fictional) room filled with bookshelves. In that room, whenever you reach for a book, it is immediately clear why that book is there. It's a place where you could easily lose yourself by following a reference from some specific part of our collective publication. Or you could start by sitting inside the library and lose yourself in exploring all of the references on surrounding bookshelves. +With Ubu@50 we wanted to open a debate on what can we envision as acts and developments that would allow for Ubu and other autonomous digital archives to persist and thrive for another quarter of a century. What futures could we imagine for the avant-garde starting from several processes that define our present moment: the ubiquity of digital infrastructures, the intensive application of artificial intelligence, and the privileging of technological responses to social and environmental crises? And in turn, what futures can we imagine for societies starting from the resilient use of technologies, radical avant-garde gestures and practices of commoning that have emerged over the last quarter of a century from the critical media cultures? -That's how we build a catalog. A bibliography. [A library](/library/BROWSE_LIBRARY.html). Something -like: https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/, -https://monoskop.org/log2/ or https://aaaaarg.fail. +# Everything is Temporary -Building that library will be as easy as sending a reference – an article, a book, a webpage - to a chat room (https://t.me/+xFYiBlTfBrhkZjI0), via an email to ![me](glassblower:marcellmars.md) or ![Tomi](glassblower:tomislavmedak.md), or adding it to a page at https://git.sandpoints.org/CustodiansOnline/MirrorUbu +The title of this experimental hyperlinked publication, "Mirror Stage: Everything is Temporary", takes its inspiration from Kenneth Goldsmith's ![Duchamps is My Lawyer](bib:fb3043f9-791a-4069-9c07-4e5f05162983): -Our collective publication emerges from that initial sharing of texts and thoughts, building a three-level hierarchy of written documents: +> Everything Is Temporary +> Over the past two decades, UbuWeb has weathered a constant series of crises—technological, legal, mental, and physical. We have been hacked, had our servers pulled out from under us, served with a parade of cease-and-desist orders, to name only a few threats to our existence. There have been countless reasons not to continue to run the site. -# Shards +And in 2024, Kenneth finally threw in the towel and decided to no longer continue adding to UbuWeb's collection and make it an archive. With this book we wanted to envision what would it take to ensure that Ubu and other autonomous digital archives can endure and thrive over the next quarter of a century – as they have over the last quarter of a century. The publication is an excercise in collective writing and integrates contributed texts and functions as an interface to a disk-based mirror of the UbuWeb archive. By creating mirrors, we build resilience for such archives. -A lot of us approach the task of writing a text first by jotting down some notes. Those notes often have references to items in the catalog/bibliography. Notes relate to each other. More often than not, notes get dropped, with the hope they might better serve us in the future in another process of writing. +This publication was collectively written by twelve "glassblowers": Felix Stalder, Sanja Bojanić, Srećko Horvat, Aleksndra Savanović, Nick Thurston, Alessandro Ludovico, Dušan Barok, Olga Goriunova, Cristóbal Sciutto, Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak. -We like to understand our notes as [shards](/shard/index.html). Shared shards. Shards collected/curated together build a reflection. We encourage editing someone else's shard or picking it up for your own reflection(s). Collective writing is hard but such guestures could help. That's our hope at least. +# The structure of the publication -# Reflections +Glassblowers they are called as this publication plays with the metaphor of a mirror. Metaphorically, a mirror generates reflections, reflections are composed of fragmentary apparitions we have called shards. Consequently, the hierarchy of this hyperlinked publication is that it is a mirror containing a number of reflections. Reflections are your best entry points into our writing endavour. Sometimes they resemble traditional essays, sometimes they are conceptual texts, each written by a glassblower. -![](reflection:cristobal.md) collect shards and build upon them. A reflection is a work in progress, a bit more articulate than a shard. A short essay if you want. +The list of all reflections you will find on the top of this page. -# Mirror - -![](mirror:ubu.md). It's a single document describing our endeavor. A mirror is gradually built from reflections which are built from shards. This process is neither linear nor unidirectional. A shard could come from a spark kindled by a sentence being written in the mirror document or from a reflection. Forget about spark. This is the moment where metaphorical starts to ruin its purpose. - -We have a software platform which transforms this metaphorical play into a literal one. It is called [Sandpoints](https://pages.sandpoints.org/sandpoints/simplesandpoints-de47f813/draft/portfolio/). But let's forget about software for now. It will come in handy only when we need to accelerate what we agreed upon and set as our collective common ground. And for that we need to waste some time together. We couldn't imagine a better place than a renaissance palace on the Adriatic island of Cres. Once we are all in Cres you will totally get what we think by this ;) - -![](static/images/everythingistemporary.jpg) +Each reflection references and links to a number of shards – fragments of writing, references and notes that revolve around the central concern of "Everything is Temporary". As you start to wind your way through the shards, a kaleidoscope of near-future thinking opens up to you. \ No newline at end of file