Printing out the Internet

About

On May 22, 2013, Kenneth Goldsmith, a conceptualist writer, University of Pennsylvania professor, the Poet Laureate of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the curator of the literary resource site Ubu Web,^[1] put out a call for people to print out pages from the web and mail them to the MoMA with the ostensible goal of printing out the entire internet, and with the much more manageable goal of memorializing the programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, whose suicide had only happened a few months prior. The project eventually gained mainstream coverage, being the topic of an article on the Washington Post^[2] and a note in Harper’s Magazine. The project has so far collected over 10 tons of paper.^[6]

The Call for Submissions^[5]

On May 22, 2013, Kenneth Goldsmith launched a call to print the entire internet. The result is Printing Out The Internet, a collaborative art piece that became a platform for discussion with passionate reactions, both in favor and against the homage to Aaron Swartz that with this action the poet sought to make.

The apparent impossibility of the project is just an excuse for Goldsmith, who proposes in this exhibition ‘an imaginary solution to an imaginary problem’, as well as a commentary about the free flow of information, an issue he has developed in his writing and an urgent topic for discussion in contemporary culture that is reiterated by Swartz’s suicide.

Printing Out The Internet is a detonator, an open stage that welcomes dispute, contradiction and poetry, a space that will house discussions, workshops, screenings and the marathon reading of the internet for a month.

Goldsmith

Goldsmith is a long-time proponent of what he calls “uncreative writing,” or writing which has been produced under constrictions which eliminate the author’s own creative control over the result. These methods can include the use of “readymade” artifacts as art objects (a method pioneered by the Dadists), the use of a writing algorithm, or the use of transcription.

Some of Goldsmith’s other projects include Soliloquy, a book he produced by recording everything he said for two weeks and transcribing the result, Day, a re-print of the New York Times issue for the morning of September 11 (i.e. just before the attacks), and Fidget, a book which records every movement that his body made for the day of June 16 1997.

His work has been widely studied and talked about, and has earned him a great deal of mainstream attention, including a White House lecture devoted to his work and an appearance on The Colbert Report.

Spread

The project has lead to a great deal of outcry and several derivative works. In July, a piano composer sent an email to goldsmith asking for permission to use text from his tumblr as part of a piano piece (the permission was granted);^[3] one person attempted to print out all of YouPorn;^[4] and the project has staged several public readings of the collected material, one of which came with the following declaration:^[7]

IF YOUPRINTEDTHEINTERNET, READING IT WOULDTAKE 57,000 YEARS, 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEKNON-STOPAND IF YOUREAD IT FOR 10 MINUTES A NIGHTBEFOREBED, IT WOULDTAKE 8,219,088 YEARS.

WE BEGIN ON JULY 26TH.

Much of the criticism directed towards the project has focused on the paper waste and carbon emissions that it would cause.^[8]^[9]^[10] Such was the thrust of a short article published in Harpers Magazine:

Calls for the project to end have resulted in a Change.org petition, which currently has 400 signatures.^[11] In response to the criticism, Goldsmith has promised to recycle all of the paper he receives once the show has run its course.