The interests within this group overlap on different axes.
In our conversations, the dominant axis is one of bib⁄networks. We have discussed bib⁄horizontal kinships between like-archives (most immediately, www⁄Memory of the World, www⁄Monoskop) using the terms of digital culture and computational engineering to think practically about “the political”. But my guess is that the politics of the people behind these like-seeming archives are probably quite varied, beyond sharing shard⁄one guiding question (i.e., what if copyright didn’t exist?).
So, I want to think www⁄UBUweb on a different axis, in terms of remix culture and another cluster of like-minded archives, which UBUweb scaled-up among. www⁄PennSound, the www⁄Electronic Poetry Centre, and later the www⁄Eclipse archive all try to sample and share — for educational use — the vernacular heritage of literary communities who self-identify with non-mainstream culture.
Remixining has lots of histories. My guess is that lots of those histories were remixed in the conjuring of UBUweb, from New York’s bib⁄hip-hop sampling culture of the 1980s to Aby Warburg’s atlas of “ bib⁄constellations”, not to mention the bib⁄quotational practices of bib⁄post-conceptual art and www⁄LANGUAGE poetry. My guess is that Kenneth loved/loves file-sharing; that he had/has lots of playlists. Certainly, he was/is www⁄a great DJ.
If bib⁄Alfred Jarry’s Ubu plays are one clear reference to a long history of modernism, another crucial reference sampled in the-remix-that-is-UBUweb is the 20th-century tradition of the “ bib⁄little magazine”. Particularly its bib⁄tactical politics, and what Abraham Foley might call the “ bib⁄editor function” therein.
Here I want to invoke the brilliant work of www⁄Danny Snelson, who formulated the concept of “ bib⁄the little database” to talk analogously about exactly the cluster of like-minded archives I mention on this other, literary axis. Snelson uses the phrase to describe relatively small web collections (in data count and purview) that transcode cross-arts content (videos, text, docs, etc; but also at the levels of genre, art form, etc) based on a clear editorial focus, such that the content and connections between it are nurtured not simply scraped.
I think Snelson’s work can help us understand the centrality and value of subjective intention in these projects. In the spirit of remix culture, the ’editor function’ is itself a compositional act. For me, www⁄John Baldessari taught us the greatest lesson about post-conceptual artistic composition: it is simply the act of deciding www⁄“this not that”.
From this point of view, we can draw out a difference between UBUweb and the kindred archives on our dominant axis. Memory of the World is an experiment in public librarianship. Monoskop is a wiki-driven public reference tool. UBUweb is more like a series of overlaid playlists, more like a private library shared, including for those who guest-edited sub-sections.