For this intervention, I was originally considering something more political and protest-oriented, and I had some provocative ideas on how to piss Northeastern off, such as having a cutout of President Aoun and having people “decorate” him. I had trouble strategizing, though, as I was in fear of sending the wrong message or getting in trouble with Northeastern admin. I liked the idea of having people contribute to something anonymously without me overseeing them directly, but I didn’t want to put myself or other people in danger. So I decided to settle on an exquisite corpse activity where I set up a bulletin board in a public space and have people add a word to continue a sentence. I was inspired by performance art pieces from Yoko Ono, as well as the Dada collage pieces, and I wanted to incorporate that into a public setting, but anonymously.
I ran a playtest in Snell Library in the evening, with the hopes of getting people coming in and out of the door. It was midterms season, so there was a decent amount of foot traffic at the entrance. I debated whether I should have asked permission from a librarian to put it up, but I decided it would be more interesting if I did it without permission. My friends Dustin and Carlos were there to assist me. We grabbed a small table and placed it at the entrance gate near some other display items from the library itself. Once set up, we added some sticky notes, starting the sentence off with “Once upon a time” and then left the bulletin there for people to hopefully contribute.
Immediately after we set it up, I saw a woman approach behind me, and she snapped a photo. From glancing at her nametag, I saw she worked for the Library, and I noticed her walk back to the help desk, located just to the left of my setup. I was worried she knew I had set it up, but she never approached me. Relieved, I set up camp to keep a watchful eye on the piece from a spot far away.
The initial setup
The first 30 minutes pass, and only one person had actually added a sticky note to the piece, although some other people took notice. I noticed that the foot traffic was mostly directed to the left and right, where the stairs and the study tables were located, respectively. Most people wouldn’t even glance remotely in the direction of the piece, which bothered me. It was ironic because that’s where the library put their displays, which meant that they weren’t really good at catching people’s attention. So I decided to move the piece near the exit, where a lot of foot traffic was located. I waited until the lady wasn’t looking, and I moved the piece right next to the exit.
The new location of the piece near the exit. More people started noticing
Sure enough, lots more people started noticing and writing more sticky notes on the board. There were 5 responses immediately after I moved it. However, this didn’t last long, as the lady came back and started freaking out about the piece. After a period of deliberation, she told the students who worked for her to move the piece back to its original location, and to keep a watchful eye over it. She seemed confused on the legality of such a piece; on one hand, it wasn’t actively offending anybody, but at the same time, it wasn’t authorized to be there. It was really entertaining to listen to them from far away.
The final status of the piece. One complete sentence on the left and a half-formed sentence on the right
Ultimately, I think the piece could have used another iteration, because once the sentence was completed by someone, it didn’t continue onward. I think people want to add something that they think is meaningful, and if they can only add a word to the sentence like “the” or “and”, it really doesn’t feel worth the effort. If I were to continue this, I would definitely consider making a rule to keep the sentence going to avoid ending punctuation. And I think I would start with a more ridiculous prompt to hook people in from the get go. But this made me realize how important the aesthetics and the placement of an intervention piece is. Especially when you aren’t manning it, it sometimes takes extra effort to garner the same amount of attention.