Library news for Artists

Jackson Pollock 51, Hans Namuth’s ten minute film of the artist painting on glass, can be streamed at Open Culture.

A selection of concrete poetry is also now available at Ubuweb, including a complete run of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s legendary magazine, Poor.Old.Tired.Horse, 1962-1968. Also here are several examples of visual poetry by Dom Sylvester Houedard, a pioneer of British concrete poetry and typewriter-driven typstracts.

The Fluxus Anthology, including dozens of soundworks recorded between 1958 and 1990, is online at Ubuweb here. It includes recordings by George Maciunas, Robert Filliou, Wolf Vostell, Al Hanson, Carolee Schneemann, Dick Higgins and others.

Five films by Yvonne Rainer are now available on Ubuweb: Hand movie (1966), Lives of performers (1972), Film about a woman who… (1974), Journies from Berlin/1971 (1980), and Privilege (1990).

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.

The British Library’s UK SoundMap is an interactive map of soundscape recordings from around the country, contributed by members of the public, which charts Britain’s changing sonic environment.

Currently installed at the Richmix cafe on Bethnal Green Road, Cybraphon is a BAFTA award winning ‘autonomous emotional robot band’ created by Edinburgh art collective FOUND.

Inspired by early 19th century mechanical bands such as the nickelodeon, Cybraphon is an interactive version of a mechanical band in a box. Consisting of a series of robotic instruments housed in a large display case, Cybraphon behaves like a real band. Image conscious and emotional, the band’s performance is affected by online community opinion as it searches the web for reviews and comments about itself 24 hours a day.

Cybraphon can be seen at Richmix until 20th April and is performing alongside its creators, FOUND, on 19th April as part of the London Word Festival.

Video journalist Brady Haran has produced Sixty symbols, a series of videos featuring scientists from the University of Nottingham explaining the science behind the symbols used in physics and astronomy.

Brady’s other science websites include:

The periodic table of videos: a film for every element on the periodic table
Test tube: videos behind the scenes in the world of science
My favourite scientist: films explaining the work of famous (and some not so famous) scientists

The artist’s book Un voyage en mer du nord by Marcel Broodthaers is now available in PDF format via Ubuweb.

A selection of 20 1960s and 70s artists’ books have been digitised and made available here. The selection includes examples by some of the most important artists associated with the boom in artists’ books publishing at this time, such as Lawrence Weiner, Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, and Marcel Broodthaers.