Have been viewing and reading on Performance Activism including the work of Reverend Billy and Suzanne Lacy.

In the case of the Reverend, his tool of public oration interests me and where it’s directed. Generally at crowds of people, he exports the template of Church to the Mall. But in one sequence he addresses the atmosphere in a kind of confessional while first standing, then kneeling at a petrol pump.

I am looking for examples where people, whether in a performative state or otherwise, address only the geographic place they are or live and instruct it on something.

There were a few characters in Dublin the woman who danced for years alongside the Floozie in the Jacuzzi on O’Connell Street comes to mind.

Often people in a psychotic, delusional or agitated state will vocalize randomly at the space they are moving through. I’ve observed this. Technically it’s one of the times when the city is read the riot act by a person.

I’ve often observed orators who are not dependent on listeners in order to orate, thus they orate into or at the space around where they stand.  Or the general atmosphere.

Another thing that I’ve observed is the passing of repartee across the pavement can sometimes in Vancouver become an unintentional public oration, since if repartee is not nabbed and remarked back upon, you have succeeded in talking to the general atmosphere. This occurred to me most noticeably when I remarked and marvelled on a massive gathering of pigeons a few years ago.

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