will no doubt be of interest, Sol.
----- Original Message ----- From: UbuWeb Corporate Campus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ubuweb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 09 December 2002 16:49 Subject: [soundpoetry] UbuWeb Feature in New York Times > http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/arts/design/09ARTS.html > > > New York Times > December 9, 2002 > > ARTS ONLINE > > Three-Dimensional Magazine Lives Again in Two Dimensions > By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL > > > Published 10 times between 1965 and 1971, Aspen billed itself as the first > three-dimensional magazine. Most issues arrived in a notebook-size box stuffed with > articles that had been printed individually rather than stapled together. But it was the > nature of its contents that made Aspen magazine stand out like a ski lift in a cornfield. > Each issue was as likely to hold postcards, posters and phonograph records as essays. And > among the magazine's 235 contributors were many prominent figures on the 60's cultural > landscape, including Roland Barthes, John Lennon, Marshall McLuhan, Lou Reed and Andy > Warhol. > > Thirty years after Aspen ceased publication, copies of the actual magazines are rarely > found outside museum libraries and dusty flea-market bins. Now, though, Aspen can be > viewed on the Internet, where the three-dimensional magazine has been digitally > reproduced for the two-dimensional computer screen with remarkable verve. The material > was put online last month at Ubu.com/aspen. > > Aspen provided a vivid snapshot of its era. The Pop Art issue came in a Warhol-designed > soapbox. Another issue described works by denizens of the Judson Memorial Church gallery, > a mecca of early performance art in New York. The Fluxus issue had conceptual scores by > Philip Glass and Steve Reich and a LaMonte Young recording. Deborah Wye, chief curator of > prints and illustrated books at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, said, "The accuracy > of the moment is something that hits you between the eyes when you open one of the > boxes." > > Given Aspen's historical importance, one might assume that a digital re-creation of the > magazine would become the work of a museum. Instead, the online version is a labor of > love by Andrew Stafford, 48, a San Francisco bookseller who gradually amassed a set of > the magazines during the 1990's. He wanted to share his collection. > > "As an example of creative publishing, Aspen is just stunning," he said. > > Mr. Stafford's project provides a primer in the pleasures and pitfalls of putting > real-world materials on the Internet. But there is no denying that Aspen is an ideal > candidate for online presentation. At a time when magazines are routinely accompanied by > compact disks with music or computer software, it is easy to overlook how progressive > Aspen was in packing its issues with the thin plastic records called flexidiscs and, in > one instance, a reel of 8-millimeter film: a truly multimedia magazine. > > Adapting the magazine for the Web's multimedia capabilities became irresistible to Mr. > Stafford. In 1999 he started digitizing some of the magazine's printed pages. He > converted the flexidisc recordings into sound files that could be played on a computer > and also asked a friend with a movie projector to transfer a reel of short abstract films > by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Robert Rauschenberg and two other artists into video files. > > Happily, Mr. Stafford did not stop there. He learned Web-animation techniques so that he > could create interactive versions of some exhibits. For instance online visitors can flip > through the digitized pages of Lennon's 1969 diary, playfully created in 1968 (sample > entry: "got up. went to work. came home. watched telly"), or rotate the lines and dots on > a page of John Cage's score for "Fontana Mix." > > Mr. Stafford completed his digitizing effort in 2000, just as lawsuits over copyright > violations involving online song files were reaching the courts. He said, "I became > totally intimidated by the prospect of breaking about 150 copyrights." Deterred by the > amount of work that would be needed to acquire permission to republish all the Aspen > materials online, he put the project in a drawer. Instead he created a free tutorial > about Marcel Duchamp, which he put online last August at UnderstandingDuchamp.com. > > He was soon contacted by the artist's vigilant and unhappy rights administrators. So far, > he said, he is dodging their demand for several thousand dollars. While researching the > problem, he approached Kenneth Goldsmith, a New York poet who has operated UbuWeb, an > Internet-based archive of experimental poetry and avant-garde works, since 1996. The site > is at Ubu.com. > > Mr. Goldsmith volunteered to put the Aspen project on his site, which he did last month. > > Despite Mr. Stafford's experience with the Duchamp tutorial, Mr. Goldsmith said: "Over > the years I've found that people only come after you for rights when you're making money. > Since UbuWeb is completely free, nobody has ever really bothered us about rights." He > said he removes entries when living artists complain, but that rarely happens. > > "Most artists who find their stuff on UbuWeb are thrilled," he said. Avant-garde artists > rarely expect royalties. "They want an audience." > > He may be right. The editors of several Aspen issues said they were pleased that the > material was available again. Jon Hendricks, who edited the performance-art issue, said, > "The idea was to get the information out rather than to think of it as property." Nor did > Jeffrey H. James, executive director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, object to audio > recordings of the choreographer Merce Cunningham on the Aspen site. Mr. James said, "The > educational value of having Merce's thoughts out there on the Web outweighs our motives > of ownership." > > Still, Mr. Stafford worried that individual contributors would force him to remove select > entries. He said, "Losing just 10 percent of the contributors would reduce its usefulness > by at least half, so I'm hoping all will cooperate." > > The ultimate arbiter would probably be Phyllis Johnson, a former intimate-apparel editor > of Women's Wear Daily who created Aspen. But her contributors have lost touch with her, > and she could not be reached for comment. > > Ms. Wye of the Museum of Modern Art was enthusiastic about Mr. Stafford's Web site, > saying that it achieved the same goal as the original magazine: making art available to a > larger public. (The magazine's circulation was 15,000 to 20,000.) She also appreciated > having the audio and video entries online, noting that even an institution like the > Modern does not always have turntables and movie projectors around. > > On the other hand, the Web site does not convey the tactile qualities of the real > magazines. "You can't imagine how beautiful these flexidiscs are in person," Mr. > Goldsmith said. "An audio file is no substitute for the sensuality of vinyl." And Mr. > Stafford's straightforward site design encourages online visitors to go through each > issue in a linear fashion, losing the treasure-chest element. > > There is one gap in Mr. Stafford's collection, the last of Aspen's 10 issues. Recently a > book dealer with a complete set (asking price: $10,000) offered to mail him color copies > of its pages. Mr. Stafford said the issue should be online by Christmas. > > Mr. Stafford said he understood that he would never recover a dime from his preservation > project. Aspen magazine "was a folly," he said, "as is my Web site, I guess." > > He continued: "Aspen the magazine never made a penny, I'm sure. So Phyllis Johnson and I > share that across all these years." > > > Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. 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