Kenneth Goldsmith. Credit: Yahoo!
Kenneth Goldsmith urges public to print as much as possible for exhibition dedicated to late programmer-activist.
Yahoo! reports on Goldsmith’s seemingly impossible mission to print out the whole internet in order to fill a building 500 square metres in size with paper as part of an exhibition; which will go on view between 26 July until an unspecified date in August.
The project, Goldsmith explains, is inspired by and dedicated to programmer-activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide this year after being accused by federal prosecutors of breaking laws by downloading “a giant cache of academic articles” from journal resource JSTOR. “The amount of what he liberated was enormous,” said Goldsmith. “We can’t begin to understand the magnitude of his action until we begin to materialize and actualize it […] this project tries to bring that point home.”
In his bid to encourage and highlight the importance of information availability, Goldsmith has issued an open call to the public to “print out as much of the web as you want – be it one sheet or a truckload” and send the printouts to Labor, a gallery in Mexico City. “What you decide to print is up to you – as long as it exists somewhere online, it’s in,” said Goldsmith. “We just want shitloads of paper. We’re literally looking for folks to print out the entire internet. We have over 500 square metres of space to fill, with ceilings that are over six metres high.”
Goldsmith, who is the Museum of Modern Art’s first poet laureate, a writer and the founding editor of online archive UbuWeb, fought back at criticism of the project, commenting: “While we could theorize printing out the internet in its entirety – something that a conceptual art piece would do; the sheer bulk and physicality of the act needs to be materialised to be able to understand the sheer magnitude.” He added that while the task is likely to be impossible, just a fraction of the printed Web could “overwhelm any space”.
It was also highlighted by Goldsmith that once the project is over, all of the donated paper will be recycled; with anyone who donates printed material to the project being listed as a contributing artist on printingtheinternet.tumblr.com, where the project will be documented.