For nine long months, the main road into Byron Bay was adorned by one of the most controversial pieces of public art since Melbourne's Yellow Peril. Until Wednesday night.

Officially called the Bayshore Drive Lighthouse Sculpture, the aluminium artwork by Melbourne artist Corey Thomas was supposed to have been a vision of birds circling the iconic Cape Byron Lighthouse.

Sadly, the artist's impression that inspired its commission was not realised and the resulting sculpture was variously likened to a half-assembled Christmas tree, a messy roll of aluminium foil, and, most enduringly, a sparkly sex toy.

The artist sketch of the proposed lighthouse sculpture in Byron Bay contrasted with what was installed. ( ABC North Coast )

The nickname "Disco Dong" stuck and, as a direct result of the wrath of the public, the sculpture was decommissioned in the dead of night.

The rise and fall of the Disco Dong has kept locals enthralled for months, providing endless fodder for conversations on the street, letters to local newspapers and, of course, plenty of fuel for social media pile-ons.

Amongst all the noise, the sculpture had fans, too: earlier this week, a sign saying "Hands off our dong!" was suspended from the structure courtesy of "The Byron Disco Dong Appreciation Society".

What went wrong

Byron Shire Council's Public Art Panel, which selected the design, have admitted that many mistakes were made.

One of the big lessons is that, just like real estate, public art needs to follow the mantra of location, location, location.

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The Disco Dong was designed to frame the actual lighthouse but only if you stood in one specific spot — a place where no-one ever stands.

This echoes the issue with the Gold Coast light sculpture that only worked when viewed from rarely-visited side streets, and the wavy roof of Melbourne's Southern Cross train station that won architectural awards for looking gorgeous from the air but is downright ugly from the more traditional viewing spot of the train platform.

The fiasco has shown that artist impressions don't count for much. The original vision of the creation was truly beautiful but, for public art to work, the paper and ink concept needs to be able to be realised in cold hard metal or stone.

The cost of public art is hard for a council to justify when other things are crying out for cash.

Byron's potholes are legendary and people are tired of having to pay for yet another wheel alignment. Even though the council stressed that the sculpture was funded by a "separate pool" of money, it is hard for ratepayers to stomach money being spent to beautify a pothole-filled road.

Plans for a separate sculpture for the currently under-renovation Railway Park in the heart of Byron Bay were quietly scrapped around the same time as the decision was taken to deflate the disco dong.

Sculpture of a lighthouse by artist Corey Thomas on Ewingsdale Road in Byron Bay ( Gemma Sapwell ABC North Coast )



The ultimate in public art

There is nothing new about an outcry around a piece of public art but there is no doubt that social media intensified the debate — and the quick turnaround time from erection to deflation.

But it also provided a timely solution to the stoush. It was a Facebook post in a community group that first raid the idea that, should the sculpture be decommissioned, the birds could be sold to both fund the decommission process and to not waste the materials.

This suggestion was taken up so the 5,000 birds — which are quite lovely individually — will shortly be sold (ironically, from the council's "tip shop") for $20 each. The council has so far had hundreds of people, including me, register their interest.

Far from disappearing, the Disco Dong will now become the ultimate in public art. Like some sort of ambitious shire-wide installation project, the birds will now fly free, scattered around individual homes and perhaps some public places.

Perhaps best of all, the demise of Byron's Disco Dong and the subsequent phoenix-like rising of individual birds into the public sphere might inspire a modern take on an old proverb: a bird in the hand is worth two on the dong.