Fun House: DIY House Venues and the Melbourne Underground

Using Dogs in Space’s depictions of parties, pubs and apparently ad hoc party performances as a starting point, Hawkins examines the ongoing practice in twenty-first-century Melbourne of running ‘unofficial’ venues outside the conventional ‘pub rock’ system. Referring to the history, design conventions (‘territorial reinforcement’) and expectations of usage of licensed venues she examines three share house venues of contrasting nature. Such ‘third places’ exhibit, she posits, a level of secrecy; awareness of them requires such ‘insider knowledge’ that they allow the perpetuity of a coherent ‘alternative’ scene in many other regards fragmented and elided by gentrification, monetisation, and related phenomena. She employs interviews, historical research, and field observation to prosecute the examination of such places as sites of production and consumption within the ‘underground’.