Aligned to the principles of the Melbourne 2030 Strategic Planning Policy, Dandenong is undergoing a process of “urban regeneration”, which will apparently result in substantive functional-aesthetic changes as well as changes in the ways it is utilised by the various publics of Dandenong. Amidst the conventional inevitability of ‘progress’ (as defined by abstract sources) lies a concern to take stock of what this urban regeneration might mean for the people who call Dandenong ‘home’.
Is “Dandenong” a lucid identity in itself? Or is it a histrionic succession of architectural, socio-political and geo-physical states (processional rather than cumulative), each state erasing the previous one with the grand gesture of progress?
>MULTI-CULTURAL WONDERLAND >TRANSPORT HUB >WASTELAND
What is the identity of Dandenong? Can it be defined by the quality of infrastructure that bi-sects it physically or is it a fluid, unpredictable quality whose definition will not always be desirable? Depending on the documentation one reads, Dandenong is: 1) a vibrant, ‘multicultural’ community at the centre of a rapidly expanding suburbia, 2) a vital convergence of transport infrastructure or 3) (from urbandictionary.com, the internet being the most reliable source for adverse opinion) “ Australia's Equivalent to the USA City, Compton, located in the South-east suburbs of Melbourne, it is the central to all negative stereotypes, these being: Violence, drugs, weirdo's, public drunkardness and gangs.”
It is ofcourse inclusive of all these descriptions, which are ostensibly myths, but most myths have their roots in some aspect of reality, and it would be equally fallacious to promote one whilst denying the other. Indeed, these descriptions most likely represent the extreme points of the simplified panorama: at one end an aspirational and multicultural wonderland, in the middle an intersection of busy highways and at the other end, a low socio-economic ‘wasteland’. In between these points lies the indefinable movement of cultures, attitudes, demographics and beliefs that are taken for granted and posited as the ‘general public’. Clearly also within the extremes there is a fluidity between perception and reality. The multicultural ‘wonderland’ and the low socio-economic ‘wasteland’ are fundamentally interdependent, therefor what may be perceived to be a ‘general public’ may just be a moment of transition from one to the other. So what constitutes a ‘public’ then, and can a ‘general public’ be used as a blueprint for identity (or is it more expedient, less problematic, to use physical aspects of site, landmarks, architecture etc.) ?
FROM STRANGERS TO PUBLIC
How does one make the transition from being a private individual to a member of a ‘public’? One must be a stranger who is addressed and introduced to a discourse. When addressed, we are revealed as strangers and immediately transformed into a member of the public (Warner, 2005, p67). It requires our attention, even participation to become actively involved in a discourse. Once we inhabit this discourse, we perform this transition, from stranger to public, continually (Warner, 2005, p77). The word ‘perform’ here has particular relevance to the act of being ‘public’, which I will discuss later. The notion here is that a ‘public’ is fundamentally a “space for discourse organised by nothing other than discourse itself.”(Warner, 2005, p67) A discourse usually relies on people having different or contrasting views, therefor a ‘public’ is a space where people with contrasting views are engaged in a discourse, where the discourse itself is what defines the space as ‘public’, rather than just “ a more or less arbitrary, context-dependent sampling of private individuals abstracted from their privacy.”(Hannay, 2005, p22)
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE ‘PUBLIC GOOD’
Immediately it would seem a travesty that any one public could have a defining or consensual opinion; if a public is a discourse of contrasting views then a public of one opinion is no public at all. Whose opinion, then, becomes known as ‘public opinion’? Are the public aware of this deception? No, but it is the public that authorises it, even though it may not have generated it. Public opinion is an idea formed by individuals making a judgement on general, moral issues, based on what they imagine our society to be sustained by(Hannay, 2005, p53). The key to identifying certain judgemental ideas as ‘public opinion’ is to have them registered by a ‘public’; to feed these ideas to a particular public in such a way that this public registers itself as THE public and the opinion as ITS OWN opinion, then have it fed back, thus authenticated by the public. One way to elicit this authorisation is through the use of polls and surveys, the graphic and quantitative results of which represent the ‘truth’ of their speculations. For this reason public opinion is an important political device. However, because it is only semi-consciously supported by the public it purports to represent, it is fickle, easily manipulated and abused, misled and ultimately self-defeating. The idea of a ‘public good’ is equally opposed to its intentions. Although as a notion it seemingly represents a desire to ensure the ‘well being’ of a whole, this ‘well being’ is itself the maintenance of the basic right of an individual’s privacy (Hannay, 2005, p72). Again we see then that this notion of ‘public’ relies heavily on there being a fluid and contrasting collection of private individuals. The ‘public’ is often an extension of our private selves, rather than the expression of a shared or communal interest (Hannay, 2005, p78).
PRIVACY AND IDENTITY
Privacy is the most treasured right of contemporary society. It is a way in which we can be relieved from a public existence which is always only a “mouse click away” (Hannay, 2005, p111). Yet it is in the immediacy and profligacy of todays public sphere that we now furnish ourselves with private personalities, or identities. In today’s proliferation and access to public spaces (not just physical, media, internet etc.) we may acquire, beget or shed identities that in previous times would have taken a lifetime of association with a particular profession or class just to define - where the life-experience would have been enough (Hannay, 2005, p80). In today’s identity vacuum, public space becomes a market place for the appropriation of identity - a place in which almost anybody can create their very own public, a captive audience to which one may try out, or perform various forms of personality and identity. Everyone can participate as part of the audience, or as the performer. It is this performative nature of an individual’s private existence that most radically defines contemporary public existence. Yet this definition is itself increasingly distorted by its own nature - the immediacy and access to media (internet) creates an almost hyperactive creation and dissolution of publics. The Mexican-American performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña calls this notion of public space the “Mainstream Bizarre”:
The mainstream bizarre has effectively blurred the borders between pop-culture, performance and “reality”. The new placement of other borders, between audience and performer, between the surface and the underground, between marginal identities and fashionable trends is still unclear.(Gómez-Peña, 2005, p51)
Where there were marginal ‘publics’ or discourses that maintained a strong sense of identity because of their alienation from the dominant public discourse (Warner, 2005, p118), now we see that “the insatiable mass of the so-called ‘mainstream’ . . . has finally devoured all ‘margins’, and the more dangerous, thorny and exotic these ‘margins’, the better.”(Gómez-Peña, 2005, p51) Individuals can parade around in public spaces festooned with the vestiges of the most radical identities, like fake moustaches, without forgoing their membership of the dominant, or mainstream public. How does one engage with a public/s whose identity is no longer necessarily defined by profession, class or income, but by whatever desire can be fulfilled by the ”mainstream bizarre”?
DISSOLUBLE STRUCTURES AND CONTRASTING OUTCOMES - ART IN PUBLIC SPACE
How can art become a true member of the discourses that are public spaces? I am speaking of the public spaces that bloom in unpredictable places and occasions through the simple yet powerful act of people involved in discourse; how can art become involved - celebrate, change and be changed, provoke and respond, construct and dissolve - in the constant but not necessarily continual conflagrations of these public spaces?
There are precedents to engaging with this dilemma - the ‘Situationist’ ideals of Guy Debord, the study of ritual and the relationship of performance to society by ‘theatre anthropologists’ such as Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, and ultimately the growth of ‘happenings’ and ‘performance art’ beyond the exclusive walls of galleries and theaters. Indeed, through the theatricalization of the visual arts and the detheatricalization of theatre, a mixed-media artistic process has developed that can indeed involve itself with a certain amount of fluidity in public spaces. Both Debord and Turner acknowledge the necessary polymorphic nature of ‘public’ events: “rituals, dramas and other performative genres are often orchestrations of media, not expressions in a single medium.”(Turner, 1988, p23) Debord foresees that in order to create ‘situations’ that can explore the intermittent, dispersed nature of public spaces, the modern idea of ‘theatre’, as well as ‘painter’ or ‘sculptor’ must collapse, leaving only ‘situationists’(Debord, 2002, p46).
It is in the notion of dissoluble structures and an acceptance of the unpredictability of outcomes that art can best approach an active participation within public spaces. The inherent vitality of ‘life’ will always guarantee an aesthetic outcome, but in the end it is the manner of engagement that will validate this aesthetic.
COLOURFUL, CLEAN, SAFE
Which brings us back to Dandenong. Taking their lead from other aesthetically dubious projects such as Docklands, Vicurban have deduced, from their community consultation and subsequent identification of public opinion, that the Dandenong public desire a space that is “colourful, clean, safe and enjoyable”. The reverberating emptiness of these words will no doubt extend to their resulting constructions. The issue here is the mediocrity of a places ambition to explore space and identity.
Therefor, a parting set of questions: Is “colourful, clean and safe” a valid aesthetic outcome for a public space? Does Dandenong really just want to be known as “colourful, clean, safe and enjoyable”? If this were true then would it be prepared to relinquish its “multi-cultural” identity, it’s other ‘publics’ that are both it’s ‘wonderland’ and its ‘wasteland’? Can the physical spaces that already exist in Dandenong still provide meaningful and vibrant discourse; does discourse need a “ colourful, clean, safe and enjoyable” space to be neaningful, vibrant and necessary to the identity of a place?
REFERENCES
Debord, G., (ed. McDonough, T.), 2002, Guy Debord and the SItuationist International: Texts and Documents, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
Hannay, A., 2005, On the Public, Abingdon & New York: Routledge
Gómez-Peña, G., 2005, ethno-techno: Writings on Performance, Activism and Pedagogy, London: Routledge
Turner, V., 1988, The Antropology of Performance, John Hopkins University Press
Warner, M., 2005, Publics and Counterpublics, Zone Books
1. ART
The majority of people surveyed expressed a desire for “a lot” of art in Dandenong. More encouraging is their preference for only “some” art to provide “a lot”; this would suggest that while the majority of people are happy for spaces to be filled with art, they are concerned with the quality and value of this art. While there are many artists and many non-artists in Dandenong, there is only a minority who believed they “could be” artists.
2. CRIME
Of those surveyed, most identified the shopping centre in the Palm Plaza mall as one of the safest places to be in Dandenong. Many people also chose the “stay home” option as the best for “avoiding trouble”. This would suggest that the ideal way to enjoy a safe and peaceful time in Dandenong would be to stay home or go shopping. Most people surveyed were not aware of the quality of lighting at night in Dandenong, which would also suggest that few people venture out to Dandenong at night.
3. DREAMS
A lot of people think about God “all the time” in Dandenong. If they could be anywhere at this particular moment in time, overwhelmingly they would choose heaven over any earthly paradise (an equal amount of people chose “Dandenong”, assuming that it was not important where they are right now because after this life they will hopefully go to heaven). The question is: how does the City of Greater Dandenong accommodate for the mass transcendental preoccupations of its community? If most of its inhabitants are preoccupied with God, does the City of Greater Dandenong need to change anything materially, or is it all a futile diversion? Many people could not remember a recent dream they had because they worked too hard and therefor slept- and dreamt- very little.
4. Housing
Many people were uncertain as to whether their house was “old” or “new”. This may be indicative of a more general uncertainty about one’s identity as a suburb, city, state and country. While many people identified items of furniture as essential to the “comfort” of a home, an equal amount stated that a an “outlook”, “feeling” or “vibe” was just as important. The majority of people surveyed identified “four to six” people as the ideal amount of people living in a house at any one time.
5. Geography
Most people surveyed believed Dandenong to be between twenty and forty-five minutes away from anywhere. While most people could illustrate where Dandenong was in relation to the City, few seemed aware or interested in what lay in between (see Appendix (B)).
6. IDENTITY
It is clear from the majority of responses that ‘culture’ is a disputed asset in Dandenong. Disturbingly, the assertion that ‘housing’ was Dandenenong’s worst asset was supported by the majority of those surveyed. That shopping is Dandenong’s best asset is supported by most people nominating the Palm Plaza Shopping Centre as their favourite place to be in Dandenong.
7. COMPLAINTS
The list of complaints below are selection of the complete amount we received, chosen to illustrate the array and individual-specific nature of complaints. Not represented here are the significant number of people who stopped to express that they had ‘nothing’ to complain about.
> Police don’t have an understanding of young people. They come with force, this makes the kids go crazy. Bad Communication.
> New world (dis)order
> Brianwashed idiots preaching in the mall.
> Racism. Police don’t understand African people - the system is confused.
> Need more money.
> Only two more puffs left on my cigarette. Overworked.
> Too many stabbings.
> Youth with nothing to do. Anti-social behaviour: spitting and graffiti. A disregard for disability services. Racism, need more education. Lack of good movies at the cinema.
> Too many foreign trees planted instead of natives. They lose their leaves.
> Someone who believes and non-believers: there’s no answer, they just can’t get along.
> Myer’s hasn’t changed its stock since 1984.
> All the institutions of this country are useless, except for undertakers.
> Not enough time to complain.
> Christians that preach in the mall - too loud.
> Too many people carrying knives.
> The senior manager of the Commonwealth Bank was very rude, confusing people.
> Grenda’s Bus Company office - no disabled access and was refused use of their toilet. Kidney problems.
> The ABC should refer to Kevin Rudd as the ‘Prime Minister’ rather than just calling him ‘Mr.Rudd’.
> Instead of government spending on broadband, invest in piping water down from the Ord river Scheme. Water rates should go up.
> Health - why do we have to get sick when we get older? Spending money like water.
> Annoying to pay for parking on main street - dissuades shopping, not conducive to ambience, not attractive for cafe culture.
> Street sweepers in Doveton come around between 9:45 and 11:45 at night, wake us up, going round and round and round.
> Why does the government swear on the Bible? Hypocrisy. People are not afraid of the law because there is none. Scientists take the easy way out and are bloody stupid.
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...CLASSIC...
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