A FOREWORD In 2021, and in Australia, as increasingly the once expected 'three score and ten' becomes more regularly exceeded by 'ten' and more still, and while all the while that expectation is still diminishing within FIRSTnations peoples, there are tensions in the Australian cultural landscape. Clearly, there is much to consider. Against such backgrounding, musing upon human 'placedness' is a somewhat salutary, perplexing and speculative business.
Recently, a PUBLICbureaucrat 'deemed authoritatively' that for "planning purposes, cultural landscaping is a 'noun' and definitely not a 'verb'". This very same bureaucrat, similarly asserted that the 'terra nullius' concept had nothing whatsoever to do with civic planning in their/our jurisdiction. Confronted by such bureaucratic BOVINdust, and considering that the speaker apparently held a degree in 'architecture', and held a top ranking position, one cannot ignore the prospect that quite a few professional and powerful 'placemakers' are culturally inept and are underdone promulgators of cultural 'theory'.
This, sadly, seems to be the cultural paradigm that turns up whenever cultural production in all its manifestations comes into focus and especially so when the assumed and presumed status quo comes under threat.
In EIGHTplus decades humanity at the hegemonic end of the spectrum, humanity has been indulging itself in a range of – looking back and then forward – cultural experiments and social indulgences that are worth pondering upon. The question that persistently hangs in the air is the one that goes, does place define a cultural reality or do human cultural realities define place, and thus 'placedness'?
When you hang any class of scientific consideration alongside this class of questioning, in the past 80years what once stood for preeminent 'civilisation' starts to crumble like so much stone turning to dust under a the hammer of time – and with real world 'enlightenment' driving the hammer.
80years ago, 'Climate Change' was an inconceivable prospect and because it had seemingly done so before, 'science' could be relied upon to correct past mistakes and deliver new opportunities. Likewise, hegemonic authority off the back of global conflict, neo-imperialism and peri-colonialism, looking back, has fuelled the growing discomfort experienced as a consequence of blind faith in a plethora of ideologies.
With our so called trust in 'science' it is baffling – no something much more than baffling – that in our 21st Century modernity we have placed so, so, such blind trust in science and technology and that we all accept all of what science tells us about everything – that is until, it comes to climate science. People just do not know what they don't know. We might remember that before we hold it against them. Nevertheless, there are two kinds of idiocy, the first being the fool who genuinely does not know what they well might and the second being the moron who just will not accept that they do not know but instead 'is blighted by belief'. Arguably, there might even be a third – a hybrid of the two.
Looking back 80years or so, one expects to see a legacy and that 'expectation' is to say the least, well, it comes loaded. Such musings, laced as they invariably are with innuendo, also they so very often come with DEEPhistories and a plethora of stories and this does not make 'getting to the guts of the matter' any easier. This sort of timeframe is significant and one way or another 80 marks a huge milestone in human terms. There is always the opportunity to acknowledge a long and meaningful chain of events – but we must let reality have its say.
While 80years is not any longer that much beyond the average human LIFEexpectancy it is a vantage point from which assessments can be made and a point from which readings might be taken. Likewise, reaching this point is a blessing as much as it might be a curse.
At such times there are gifts to be had and there is much to be gleaned from them too – even if you don't agree with everything that is to be, and will be said. In any event, the future starts today, not tomorrow.
CULTURE AND IDENTITY ... An all pervading human imperative is to do three things, fundamental and compelling things:
• To identify, that is do whatever one can do to distinguish oneself from others – ranking, prowess, role, etc; and
• To procreate, that is biologically in the context of a gender binary, or within gender fluidity, socially – essentially, to survive beyond the grave.
It is inescapable, albeit that within the context of multi-dimensional cultural realities 'difference' becomes something more than a banal social dynamic. For the most part all this seems to 'operate' within a level of subliminal consciousness.
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Asking a bureaucrat in any Western cultural manifestation of governance, what ‘culture’ is, most likely nowadays, it will earn you a look of bewilderment. It’s the kind of thing everyone knows the answer to but when push comes to shove nobody, it seems, has a ready answer for you – at least not one that fits some convenient bureaucratic paradigm at a time and relevant to 'placemaking'.
Culture is the central concept, the corner stone, upon which the study of 'anthropology' is founded. Anthropology encompasses that range of phenomena that are transmitted through social interaction in human societies. [P C6]
Cultural universals are found in all human societies. They include expressive forms like art making, music masking, dance, ritual, religious expression, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, modes of shelter, and dress. Frank Zappa somewhat cynically, and speaking from a Western Eurocentric standppoint, is reported as saying that "ART is making something out of nothing and selling it". That said, it must also be said that this 'sensibility' comes fully laden with Western, Eurocentric, colonial cum peri-colonial imperatives and idealogical standpoints.–[P B4]
From whatever standpoint one finds oneself sitting, all three of our human IDENTITYimperatives are intertwined and are with us all the time and always. Moreover, they effect everything we do as individuals and as a society. There is no escaping this!
MATERIALculture covers the physical expressions of these things in action. Such things as:
• Technology – TOOLmaking, design practices etc.;
• PLACEmaking – architecture, landscaping, PLACEscaping etc.; and
• CULTURALproduction – ARTmaking, MUSICmaking, rituals, performances, etc.
Thinking of the 80factor in an Australian cum global context, within the timeframe of WW2 to the present, alongside many other cultural paradigm shifts, the "Art Crafts Debate" emerged. Consequent to that in Australia:
• 'Trade apprenticeship systems' came under scrutiny within technical education;
• Universities and 'Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE)' initiated and later abandoned 'Crafts programs' and dedicated tertiary 'Cultural theory' programs and consequently 'research initiatives' evolved within them;
• Government funding agencies supported 'studio craft practices' and training cum mentorships;
• Community cultural development programs facilitated a range of 'Crafts initiatives' within and outside adult education programs;
• Speculatively 'private institutions' embraced and promoted 'crafts practices' in an educational context;
• A distinct GALLERYmarket evolved for CULTURALproduction that was not so-called FINEart in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Europe and the UK – essentially post-Imperialist cum past-colonial jurisdictions; and
• Public Museums and Galleries developed 'Crafts Collection' many of which evolved into 'Design Collection'.
The 'Crafts Movement' – the collective proper noun – became something of a cultural phenomena in the 1970s. Around all this sensibilities and cultural ideologies evolved and were vigorously marketed – expressed, published and disseminated – to what was assumed to be 'new audiences'.
In the context of the 80factor there is much to muse upon, much to interrogate, much to assess in retrospect.
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