Public Intervention Ideas & Provocations

PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS with text, image, and performance

During this institute, participants will be challenged to vocalize personal manifestos through public discourse and intervention. We, the facilitators, will challenge the group to devise a micro-performance and/or text-based intervention in a public space (1. farmer's market or 2. beach front). The performance will be limited to a 5-10 minute performance piece and/or participatory poetics exercise that will entail our participants interacting, encountering, provoking, surveying, or speaking to the public through body, voice and/or text.

PERSONAL LECTURE SERIES
Hold a lecture series. Choose a random spot and invite a small group. Lecture on something hyper personal or socially significant (based on the work of Miranda July).

DUAL MANIFESTOS
Perform two manifestos at once, two people standing on either side of a space with mega phones. The intention is to blur, confuse, expound on significant or the absurd, the playful or the serious, for a set amount of time (based on the work of guerreatellier).

WHISPER LECTURES
Decide on a phrase and whisper into ear of stranger for set number of hours/minutes.

FREE ADVICE BOOTHS
Set up a Lucy-stand and give away free advice (based on the thinking of Erica Tryon @ Spider Schergen).

TRUISM GIVE-AWAY
Set up a booth and create/appropriate proverbs. Write them on sheets of paper and tuck them in people's pockets, pass them out, etc.

SENSES CENSUS
Generate a set of questions based on subjectivity and feeling. Assume the role of census taker and walk around the market taking surveys (based on the work of Break Arts).

CHALK BAWLK
Participant shouts/announces/reads a bit of text, the chalker writes it on the ground or scribes it on a wall.

LINE BREAK ON THE SIDEWALK
Tape down masking tape in lines. Participant starts a line of poetry or begins a letter and then invites people to help them complete the poem by writing a line. This goes on until poem is finished.

PROTECT PROTECT
Participant chooses a word or phrase to repeat in various ways -- through speaking, writing, or whispering these phrase or word over and over again for set number of minutes.

PUBLIC SCHOOL/COMMUNITY CHALK BOARD
Participants will hold a public school and walk around with paper and pen giving people "assignments" through questions, or written "tests," "handouts," or "worksheets." They can also set up a community chalk board an write a significant question on it. Passer by can respond. Participants can change the question or direction every ______ minutes.