[-empyre-] preservation and values

["949Simon Pockley" <simonpockley@hotmail.com>]

Greetings from Simon Pockley in Geelong where everything is a bit damp after 
wild storms last night. It's a privilege to be asked to contribute to this 
discussion and I?m looking forward to a great conversation.

My personal and professional interests have been hard to separate over the 
last 10 years as I?ve struggled to maintain live access to ?The Flight of 
Ducks?. At the outset I was more concerned about my own access to my own 
material but soon discovered that the space was richer for the addition of 
other people?s material and comment as it came in via email and was 
included.

Not everyone found this kind of transparency comfortable. I?ve had some 
heated messages demanding that I remove all trace of some of the contacts 
and connections that have been made.

In many cases, these exchanges were quite edgy. For example, a senior member 
of the Central Lands Council (Aboriginal) was found to be selling 
confiscated secret/sacred artefacts to dealers in the USA or some very 
candid comments were made about funding problems facing the National Library 
of Australia.

In having to face up to the dilemma of removing such exchanges from access, 
I?ve also had to face up to the strength of my own values and realise that 
not everyone shares these values.

I?ll raise the question of values early in this discussion because it will 
be underpin everything that we say. As a metaphile, I?m a pluralist, I 
believe that there are many stories to tell, many points of view that can 
and should be expressed. I believe in proliferation as a preservation 
strategy and I am an advocate of unbridled appropriation, reuse, repurposing 
and re-presentation.

I wonder if other members of this discussion have the same values?

Best wishes

Simon

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