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The green man

Performance
8 hours

O’Connell Street, Limerick
1998

 

The green man was a performance piece made for the National Review of Live Art which took place in Limerick 1998.

The performance was located at a crossroad of O’Connell Street, the main shopping street through Limerick City. The junction has a four way pedestrian crossing system, so that pedestrians can cross each of the four streets at the junction.

Starting at 9am the performer or walker stood at one corner of the junction, waiting for the green man to appear on the crossing light. When it did he then crossed that street and waited at the next crossing for the green man to appear at that crossing. When it did he crossed that street and waited at the other corner for the green man to light at that that crossing. This occurred around the four crossings in an anti-clockwise direction and continued until 5pm when the walker left the system and disappeared down O’Connell Street. Two rules were observed; firstly that the walker would not press the crossing button himself, relying on others to press the button and secondly that he would only cross when the green man light was lit, even if the traffic was clear.

The walker was dressed in casual but bright clothing and carried an blue umbrella incase of rain. The junction is a busy junction for both pedestrians and vehicles. There are four busy properties on the end of each street, a bank, a shoe shop, a jewellery shop and a café which large glass windows on two levels overlooking the junction.

The customers in the café, being seated for a length of time, would register and discover the nature of the activity more readily than the public passing by who would require several passing encounters before they might recognise or register the activity.

The piece was devised with the public in mind. In particular it was an attempt to find a way of making public work which engaged with the public in a subtle, non-spectacular way so as to not manipulate an audience as much performance work sets out to do and relies on. The intention was to allow for an engagement with the work which was happened upon or relied on the observational powers of an audience. The work also attempted to suggest an understanding of how our movement through public space is structured and our actions systemised.

 

The green man. Real Art Project, Limerick 1998