The Spectator Australia publishes a regular Diary page segment that is written by a different guest author each week. Eugene Robinson had been invited to write this page, (page v), in the 16 November 2013 edition. The Diary intends to add some interesting personal stories to the magazine’s content. Eugene Robinson chose to write about his time in Australia. It is interesting to see the country through another’s experiences.
The diary started with some name-dropping, (The Spectator
is good at this), with Mr. Robinson telling how, on his second day in Australia, he was walking
with Lord Black and met I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on Circular Quay in Sydney.
After a quick chat, he adds: ‘I looked ahead at the brilliant white shells of
the Opera House, which was where Lord Black and I were headed, (for the
Festival of Dangerous Ideas), and up at the magnificent arc of the great
bridge, and thought: wow. Oz is a pretty interesting place.’ Strangely, this
makes it sound as if these very obvious, truly landmark structures had not been
noticed previously! Wow!
Robinson continues on with more about the festival and then
reports: ‘After a day-long conference . . . my wife Avis and I flew off to the
Whitsunday Islands.’ Then there is some advice given to Australians: ‘You don’t
know how lucky you are. Australian airports . . . (are) both faster and less
demeaning (than some others).’ Wow! Thanks!
On the Great Barrier Reef experience, he says: ‘Hamilton
Island was beautiful and tranquil - a perfect spot for a quick three
days-in-paradise vacation.’ Wow! Then the journey resumes: ‘From there we flew
on to Canberra to visit some dear friends’ - followed again by more
name-dropping. ‘The museums are impressive . . . We had good Thai food . . .
The next day our hosts drove us to a countryside roost . . . for a very good
lunch.’ . . . Wow!
He concludes: ‘And on our last day, as we were being driven
to the airport to fly home, we stopped and watched a large group of kangaroos.
. . . You really have kangaroos, just hopping all over the place. The moment
was enchanting and unforgettable. An amazing place Oz.’ WOW!
The text concludes with the note: ‘Eugene Robinson is a columnist for The Washington Post.’ This was his Australia! WOW!
So there is was, with what seems to be just one week in
Australia, Mr. Robinson fleetingly saw the opera house and the bridge in
Sydney; sat on the reef beaches of Hamilton Island for a couple of days;
visited some of Canberra’s public buildings in the parliamentary triangle;
spent time at a few local restaurants; and saw a few kangaroos as he was
leaving. Wow! He experienced nearly every cliché Australia can promote and felt
smugly satisfied: ‘an amazing place Oz.’ WOW! This vision encapsulated his
Australia. The real concern is that he leaves Australia contented after seeing
so little, with his, (and his wife’s), experience finally embellished with what
appears to be the highlight: the sight of a few nuisance rogue roos that he
passed as he was departing, leaving him convinced that he, and no doubt his
wife, had captured the true Oz experience, naively believing, it seems, there were
kangaroos hopping everywhere across the continent. The tourist brochure had
been confirmed from so little. Sadly, the circumstance is close to pure farce.
How many tourists or visitors experience such a specialised and limited array of ‘icons’ that represent only the ‘souvenir’ façade of our country, as seen on the TV promotional pieces? The true substance of place is ignored, left concealed by the easy glitz, the ticking off of glimpses of what one has been told to see. Meaning and place are much richer, deeper and more complex than any skimpy, shallow overview of highlights. A place has to be lived, touched, felt, known, and understood in depth if it is to be comprehensively perceived. Land itself is important, its feel: just ask the aboriginal residents.
After reading this Diary, it became clear how easy it
is for a place to develop an image that misrepresents its true strengths and
complexities - its significance; its substance; its story: history. The concern
is that such insubstantial understandings of place can get used as a reference
for its growth and development as well as its promotion, as guidelines that
conceal the songlines of its being. It is a strategy that only adds to the shallowness
of the perceptions of place, reinforcing every cliché while true value and
meaning are squashed, blighted by the mass dazzle of things superficially
sparkling.
Springbrook World Herutage Area
The proposals for the Gold Coast Cutlural Centre came to
mind. All of the three finalists seem to have based their concepts of an
ephemeral understanding of this region that has popularly come to be known as
an ad hoc accumulation of clichés. The perception of the Gold Coast is of a fun
destination; a playground; the theme park capital of Australia; a holiday venue
where excess, diversions and differences are sought, expressed and experienced
like nowhere else. Lying latent behind this understanding is the intellectual
mockery that sees this portion of Queensland as crass and indulgent, complete
with extremes of bad taste and perverted morals, ignorant, with a dismal lack
of ethics that extends deep into its fabric that has been shaped by slick
developers seeking fast ‘gold’ from the shoreline gloss. This attitude is
encompassed in the reflexive local joke that tells how Victorians see the Gold
Coast as ‘the arsehole of Australia’; a statement that gets the parochial punch
line response: but a lot of Victorians pass through! Got ya! Rivalry between the states is strong. The destination is
in fact seen as a wintering playground for those in colder, less sunny regions
of Australia, a place to relax all inhibitions. This aspect becomes embedded in
youth who use the area for the mayhem of ‘schoolies’ week every year.
Article, The Australian, Friday, 22 November 2013
The brash rudeness of this pretend paradise is accepted as
part of its divergence and disparity, giving the region its ‘edge’ in doubtful
character: snide and dodgy; the not-so-cheap but nasty, anti-intellectual,
‘Queensland’ location standing beside some glorious natural wonders - the
beaches; the headlands; the rivers; the creeks; the wetlands; the forests; the
bushland; backed by the hinterland: the hills; and the mountains with unique
World Heritage quality flora and fauna. These surroundings are indeed World
Heritage listed for their unique biodiversity. Yet no one would ever know this
from the hype of the promos that push the fun and games: Movie World;
Dreamworld; Sea World; Wet and Wild; and the buzz of high, high-rise
development and its lights. Any subtle feeling for place is squashed under the
careless, indulgent extremities of entertaining propaganda: see
The only attention that the World Heritage region gets is when it is seen as a location for mass tourism transported by the dream of a cableway: wow! There have been repeated attempts to achieve this outrageous outcome that is based on the hype of the clichés rather than on any love, respect, and concern for place - its flora and fauna that has been recognised by the rest of the world.
The only attention that the World Heritage region gets is when it is seen as a location for mass tourism transported by the dream of a cableway: wow! There have been repeated attempts to achieve this outrageous outcome that is based on the hype of the clichés rather than on any love, respect, and concern for place - its flora and fauna that has been recognised by the rest of the world.
Springbrook World Heritage Area
In spite of all of this natural world wonder, it is the
clichés that have become the core identity of this region, the plaything for
designers to ‘reference.’ The finalists in the cultural centre competition
indulge the idea with a big spider; a pink poodle; a big man; bungee jumps;
water slides - all these become part of an intellectual joke that continues on
with its disparagement in these chosen schemes, albeit it latently - as
‘architectural’ references. Why should architecture reference? What story is
being pushed? What is the theory here? Why? Does this simply become the old
contextual concept of the 1980’s? Is it an excuse to mock - a reason to be
extravagantly playful, to make things ‘interesting’ within a cunning ‘cultural
collage’? Is this the only idea that architects know of? What else might inform
form and hold meaning in this place that the winner sees as becoming ‘the soul’
of the region? Is this ARM wrestling, playing with concepts and outcomes? What is the function of function
these days? Indeed, what is the function of references - of soul?
Dare one ask how fast one might end up travelling down the
waterslide as presently illustrated by ARM? Might one ever ask if it would be
impossible for the bungee leap to never whip against the building fabric? It
would be ironic if folk could lose and arm or a leg in this project by ARM!
These thoughts have hardly any connection to the other deliberation that asks
how the experience of art in the ‘museum’ wrapped in a waterslide jump has any
relationship to these excrescences beyond that expressed by the Mayor when he
suggested that mum and dad could enjoy the Picassos, (does the coast have some
or is this a cliché for ‘art’?), while the kids were jumping and sliding. Has
he no children? Will these game pieces ever be built, for they are game indeed?
Are these ideas just a Melbourne joke that takes the ‘mickey,’ the ‘piss’ out
of Queenslanders, the ‘rednecks’ of Australia? Is there now a private giggle
that belligerently says, “I told you they’d love it - the hillbillies!”? WOW!
More Gold Coast clutter and chaos! - ?
Burleigh Heads National Park, Gold Coast
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