By Cara Waters
To get to Federation Square’s hidden bunker, you have to head through a staff-only doorway, enter the rabbit warren of underground corridors below the square, pass a control room, cleaner’s store room and recycling bins and then descend two floors.
The concrete bunker, known as “Slot 9”, which is 50 metres long and runs between two train lines in the labyrinthian underbelly of Federation Square, is normally off limits to the public, but it will be showcased as part of this year’s Rising festival.
The public will be able to visit Diagrammatica under Federation Square during Rising.Credit: Eddie Jim
Slot 9 does have a door that accesses Flinders Street Station, but unlike Harry Potter’s fictional Platform 9¾, the bunker does not sit between train platforms nine and 10.
It will be open to the public for the first time since before the pandemic for an immersive public art experience by artist Jason Maling called Diagrammatica.
Maling wants to transform the bunker into a space where it seems as if time and sound bend and systems of meaning shift and evolve.
Participants in the artwork must head down into the bunker and put on white overalls, shoe covers and eye protection. In small groups, they will create living diagrams using objects and parts in the bunker. These will be livestreamed into Federation Square’s Atrium.
Maling says that when he was looking for a space for the artwork, staff at Federation Square suggested Slot 9, which was being used for storage.
“They showed me down here, and I thought, ‘This is perfect,’” he says. “It’s a space which is between two train platforms, which I think is an architectural sort of anomaly. It was a space they probably didn’t know how to use … it’s almost shaped like a submarine, it’s a weird lightless zone.”
An artist’s render of the Slot 9 bunker under the square.
At its apex, the bunker is almost two storeys tall, and a small mezzanine platform overlooks one side. Underground trains rumble past on either side, causing the bunker to vibrate, and Maling says the noise of the trains is being worked into the soundscape being created.
The artwork is not dependent on the bunker, but he says the space “amplifies everything”.
“We wanted something which had a bit of mystery, and a sense of when you saw fragments on cameras like, what is that space? Where are they? What are they building down there?’” he says.
Maling says the bunker will help take participants in the artwork on a journey.
“It takes you away from your kind of everyday world into a space that you wouldn’t normally go to. The whole experience is very transporting and immersive.”
Artist Jason Maling.Credit: Eddie Jim
A spokeswoman for Federation Square’s manager, the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation, said the name Slot 9 stemmed from architectural drawings of the square.
“The substructure of Fed Square is segmented by nine main walls, creating sections or ‘slots’ that are used for different purposes,” she said.
Slot 9 has been open to the public only a handful of times, most recently for Sensory Underground – a sensory dining experience in 2019.
“Fed Square plans to open Slot 9 to the public occasionally for creative events and artist work that embraces the unusual, industrial nature of the space,” the spokeswoman said.
Diagrammatica runs in Slot 9 at Federation Square from today to June 15 as part of the Rising festival.