Ubuweb

UbuWeb is ‘a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.’ A volunteer-staffed digital archive of avant garde artwork spanning various genres, the site boasts an impressive (and totally free) range of film and video work. The list is far to long to recount but expect to find material by and/or about Cocteau, Debord, Burroughs and Ballard, Godard, Yoko Ono and Rachel Whiteread (to present a random sample). More or less the entire avant-garde Who’s Who is represented in fact, and the whole enterprise is lent a nice countercultural frisson by the site’s avowed disdain for the vagaries of intellectual property law; their FAQ states ‘we give you permission to take what you like even though in many cases, we have not received permission to post it. We went ahead and did it anyway. You should too’. For anyone even remotely interested in avant ‘n’ underground culture it’s too good an invitation to refuse.