Shadow Libraries: UbuWeb in Athens

In an age where public libraries are an endangered institution, media collections run by amateur librarians emerge as new, vital topographies of sharing. UbuWeb, a web-based educational archive founded by Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996, proposes a different sort of art history. It provides free and unrestricted access to a remarkable, idiosyncratic collection of film and video art, critical documents and essays, sound poetry and art recordings, among many other unclassifiable strands of the avant-garde.

We believe that the Ubuweb has a special meaning for Greece today, as it highlighted, through its spartan, low-bandwidth distribution, important questions regarding the notion of the periphery in an interconnected globalised world.

Through talks and workshops “Ubuweb in Athens” proposes to explore the uses of the archive in regards to artistic production, and examine Ubuweb and other shadow libraries, through the lens of its users and makers.