Behind the Scenes with UbuWeb founder, Kenneth Goldsmith
Interview conducted by Julie Shapiro

> What was the catalyst for UbuWeb's creation?

UbuWeb began as an online collection of visual and concrete poetry in 1996. Concrete poetry's modernist agenda was strongly adhered to on the page and translated particularly well onto the environment of the screen: flat and cool, backlight, graphic and iconographic. It seemed to intersect with a lot of what was happening on the then-new graphic web.

> So when/why did audio become part of the site?

When the bandwidth increased, we began posting RealAudio files. However, we became increasingly dissatisfied with the proprietary nature of Real media and migrated to the more open-sourced MP3. Now we don't use any more Real mediawhat's still on site remains from the early days of UbuWeb.

> What was the first audio file posted?

The first audio file posted was Kurt Schwitters performing his own Ursonate. Today UbuWeb currently hosts eight full-length versions of Schwitter's masterwork, the Ursonate (1922-1932): Kurt Schwitters original version; Canadian poet Christian Bök's rock-n-roll version; two versions by the Dutch sound poet Jaap Blonk: one from 1986, one from 1993; Frenchman Sébastien Lespinasse's speed version; Japanese sound-poet Adachi Tomomi's version; Finnish collective Linnunlaulupuu's group version; the John Oswald-produced Christopher Butterfield version; and the Vancouver-based Ensemble Ordinature's computer voice version.

> Do you know how many audio files are currently posted?

I don't. We have nearly a terabyte of media files on UbuWeb now, more than I can count (and more than I personally could ever archive!). Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of The University of Pennsylvania's PennSound and SUNY Buffalo's Electronic Poetry Center, we are in the unique position of having unlimited bandwidth and hard drive space so we can keep piling them on!

> There's so much to listen to, so much to read on the site.... How do you curate the work that's posted? How would you suggest that a first time viewer learn her or his way around the site?

I am the executive editor and work with several editors of different sections—I think there are now six editors besides myself. I'm not sure how to use the site. I tend to think of it more as an archive rather than a full-use experience. One needs materials dealing with the avant-garde, I would hope they would go to UbuWeb to find what they need, or at least to point them in the direction they are looking for. In other words, use UbuWeb as you would a library.

> So are all the editors constantly on the lookout for new material, or do people approach you with content, or is it a mixture of both?

The editors are in charge of bringing new content to the site as they see fit. As a result, each section of the site is constantly being updated. We accept submissions but honestly, they're rarely up our alley. Instead, we go by word-of-mouth, poach things off file-sharing, and so forth. Needless to say, we have an incredible backlog of material waiting to go on the site. It's always growing.

> Can you talk about some of the radio work that lives on UbuWeb?

We have a section called "Radio Radio," curated by Martin Spinelli, which is hours worth of radio programs with innovative poets and composers. Radio stations around the world have broadcast the entire series, plucked right from UbuWeb. Also, many of the artists on site have given us works that they have produced for radio: Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner has given us his entire output of BBC radio plays. And it seems that radio DJs and producers from all around the globe are playing MP3s that they find on UbuWeb. The site's based on the library model, should someone need something, they might find it in our archive. It's always there, just waiting to be used.

> Please explain why you selected the three audio files we're featuring, from the Ubu audio offerings?

Erik Belgum's Bad Marriage Mantra was created one night when Belgum was being kept awake in a thin-walled hotel room by a couple next door fighting. While he couldn't hear what they were saying, he could hear the pitch, intonation, timbre, and volume of their fight. He notated the whole fight and then went back home and "wrote" in the words and scored the whole thing for two voices. It's a frightening and funny work. It's also been taken up by club DJs and thrown into dance-floor mixes, which makes me very happy; I love when the avant-garde is mixed with the popular, it brings out the best in both (see my comments on People Like Us for more on this).

Max Neuhaus' Radio Net does something prescient by merging telecommunications with broadcasting very early on. Think of today's web-phone services like Vonage and imagine audible voice transmission as something to be mangled and abstracted instead of the "quiet enough to hear a pin drop" model that telecommunications promise. Neuhaus is predicting the environment of crossed-lines and misunderstanding. His is an embrace of the static on the line, the digital glitch, the prevalence of a multi-linguistic America, and all of the other sound that at one time was considered to be "noise" is our daily lives. Neuhaus' work celebrates the Joycean inevitability of multi-layered chaos that lives across our network and occupies our machines. There's more about Radio Net here.

Vicki Bennett (creator of Abridged too Far), aka People Like Us, is, in my opinion, the finest artist working in sound art today. Her practice is strictly a studio practice, taking the work of John Oswald and his Plunderphonics, Negativland, Tom Recchion and others to the next step. It's engaging, funny, catchy and very, very well done. I come across so much poorly-done sampled work; Bennett turns the whole genre on its ear, surpassing most of what's being done under the rubric of "bootlegging" or "sampling."

> From our vantage point as curators of mostly documentary audio and radio work, it seems that audio storytelling is currently experiencing a renaissance in a larger sense. Are you seeing (hearing?!) this sort of dynamic take shape in audio art and spoken word genres as well?

With the rise of the PC, there's a groundswell of people creating non-commercial and innovative audio works; the web is brimming with them. The ability to sample and recombine pre-existing forms into new genres (bootlegging, to name one) is thrilling. And what's even more exciting are the distribution systems: peer-to-peer file-sharing, audio blogs, and more traditional archives like UbuWeb all make for the richest audio environment we've ever experienced.

> Agreed, that people are making more work than ever, and pushing forms further. But do you think that general audiences are also more receptive, and expanding into new communities, growing in diversity, etc.?

I don't think that audiences are expanding. The audience for what we do is necessarily limited by the nature of the materials we offer. However, the web does make people who have been isolated in their tastes aware of one another and that synergistically creates dynamic new communities. For instance, I am a member of a tiny experimental music file-sharing community—there are perhaps 30 members in all—but all are so passionate about what they do that it's the liveliest place in the world. People across the globe are just dying to digitize their obscurities and share them with others who are just as intense. Daily, dozens and dozens of files are uploaded, dwarfing whatever meager selection record stores offer in their "experimental" section. I assume this is happening in all genres across the board and it's creating a stunning new environment for the reception of sound.