[-empyre-] intro from David Waldelton

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@subtle.net>]

David's intro mail was caught in the empyre filters.. his web site is at
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~davidwadelton

 David Wadelton <davidwadelton@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

 I find myself struggling with an unfamiliar computer in a backpacker's
internet
cafe in sunny Queensland trying to kick off my contribution. Over the years
I have worked (or continue to work) in a variety of  media including music,
photography, painting and digital media. All  present different conservation
challenges.

 There is a certain irony in photo-documenting an ephemeral event for
 posterity in the 70s, and then face conservation issues with those
 same  photos now.
There is a very interesting article in this month's Artforum about the
preservation of Don Judd's sculpture - so many problems and issues have
come up that nobody could anticipate. What to do? There is even  argument
about what the artist would have wanted.

 Even the most "archival" form of colour photo media has a life
 expectancy of around 80 years. This is considered highly fugitive by
 painting standards, whose life span is measured in centuries, (unless
  handled by a reckless freight company!).   What will happen in 100 years
to all the new large-scale colour prints   that sell at Sotheby's for half a
million dollars now? Think of  Atget's  vintage photos of Paris taken in the
early 20th century, already fading  away to nothing. Of course they could be
digitally preserved, but
 then  the debate about authenticity arises.
  Music on the other hand is endlessly reproducible, and we all still  have
the "original"...from vinyl to cd to whatever's next, each "copy"  is still
the "original".

Should we preserve old work? Of course. How we do it is the big  problem.
Keith Haring's mural on the wall at Collingwood Tech. here in  Melbourne is
a classic example. Everyone agrees it should be preserved,  but short of
demolishing the whole wall and re-assembling it in a  controlled museum
environment it will inevitably disappear within 10  years. It looks older
than Pompeii already.