Conceptualising Ethics and Becoming of Public Space

The following is an interview with Prof Steven Loo regarding Honours.

The notion of the good needs be dealt with in the forefront of the thesis. The question of the good is not just subjective idea that needs to be transparent up front. There is a philosophical conundrum of what is good.

The question of 'what is good public space'? This question of the good comes up also as being in contention, and that in many way the methodology by undertaking this research, would also define how the good is conceptualised. This is an ethical position.

The notion of good, and the many others that have described it, is a 'moral imperative'. There is a prejudgement of pre-qualifier of what is good and what is bad. Good in the literal sense that lots of people use it, therefore it is good, spaces that have multiple activities in it that enriches, and generates and economical income, then it is good. Moral conditions are based on pre conditions of judgement, this is a Kantian issue.

What work from Deleuze and Ettel do is that it comes up with another conceptualisation of ethics which does not full rely on precondition/prejudgement of what good is, but good relies upon a continuing becoming, which is the continuing of becoming of making place.

Place is not static, it is always a temporal duration aspect to place and that if the process of the place ‘becoming’ that perhaps give qualifications of what that good is. Then we do not have to define what good is, but we have to define that there is a kind of ongoing 'immanent motility of movement in that space'.

That then allows you to look at a particular urban condition, like the threshold, like a type of public space. Rather than imposing a moral imperative of the good, that is predefined and prejudged that we need criteria for qualification. We can then look at the ethics of that particular space that does not rely on that, but relies on the fact of a different type of aesthetic and an aesthetic that comes out from being immersed in a space that is continually becoming. Or the space of becoming is imbricated in the becoming of the public citizen of that space.

If motility, movement and durationality is important to place as a concept of it taking place that there is no know pre-shape of place, but what ever comes of that place is the thing that has that ethical position. Jeff Malpas will argue that it allow human beings to be, and to be in space and possibilities of life. Then those spaces can be considered as having an ethically imperative. There is no judgement where it is good or bad, but it is ethical.

So, if we then put that in relation to sustainability, which always has pre- qualifications, it needs to be then what determines sustainability as a concept with in this other model of ethics.

Dealing with a pure idea of becoming of place. Public and private notion of space are stable conditions of the human psyche. We can not say that space are not full stable or unstable, but it needs the meta stability, which is very important in Deleuzian philosophy, it is not completely de-territorialised, it is metastable that has the constant possibility of re-territorialisation, re-abstraction. It is a circular structure and there is no end.

The methodology needs to be qualified up front. From a Deleuzian perspective, as there seems to be a problem with defining space in this particular way, and that some how we need to come to terms with space …. Quote Dovey etc. It seems like that the space in a public space is always spacing, it is a verb not a noun, and if that is so we can not ask that particular question that is always asked ‘what is good public space’. You can say ‘how is public space good’, meaning where is the ethics of public space. How does an ethics get conceptualised in public space? Because it is an understanding that public space that is always becoming, it is always taking place so that human beings can take place in tandem with them,

We have to get over the hung up that we have to put space first, because that is where the answers are. Spatiality, in terms of bounded space by urban material, architectural material is one conception of spatiality with in public space. The concept of space and the spacing of human beings is one concept of space does not just occur in physical space. If we examine the thresholds and lines of desire are not completely concrete in the spatial sense. These could be environmental, economic, cultural and social…transportational spaces that are rhizomic with in that crisscross, these are real spaces that crisscross that public concrete spaces, and these rhizomic patterns need to mapped, to understand the transition that occur, that continuously shape that concrete public space.

Look at the crisscross line of desires of force as say, the way in which that space is taken place is because of these slightly indeterminate conjunction of these desire lines, and if we read it with that particular lens you get the power of the particular space, you read that history of that space, and the different combination of that positionality of that public space. Those two things, one is not better than the other. They are just different and they some how follow in sequence, and some times they do not. Planning regimes come in height restrictions, blocking of the sun are part of an understanding of that space. It is that mapping and diagramming of a space, that Dovey does.

How then do you then take that and say - This is a demonstration of taking place of a particular type of place, and with in that would be the kind of possibilities for the public to engage with and therefore express a kind of existence or evoke a kind of existence.

Meaning – it’s the possibility of allowing an alternative set of conditions or possibilities of life for the human to emerge from that condition.

For example if a business man is confronted with graffiti that then leads to a desire line which shoots out from that, that connects the economic structure of the city.

It is ok to look at the city, but we need talk about the city.

For Instance, QV, city and history, what traces of affect that still crisscross that site. The traces of the hospital; Kirsten Thompson was the only one amongst the other architects [the big boys in town] that gave a particular contextual reverence to place making, the whole ideation about messaging, that semiotics, would have for the rest of city of Melbourne.

Further more [Place making by David Colb] how to be a neo traditionalist in a non traditionalists places. What else can we rehabilitate from the traditional that is positive, as opposed to something that restricts our thinking, our practice of life?

Thus, the thesis structure examines the conventional structures/methodologies of ethics, ‘good urban space/place making’ in contrast to theoretical impetus of ‘becoming places’. Which highlights the conundrum. We can not marry the two together, (ethics of preconditions of good urban space and Deleuzian ideation of becoming), as they do not appear to be on the same epistemological platform of structures of knowledge patterns. Therefore, the condition of the good needs to be scrutinised before proceeding. The thesis Discussion [Results and Overview of the Findings] can then analysis how we can make use of conceptualising in this way, and what the public good is, by utilising this particular ethical structure.