Yesterday, I witnessed what I would call a public space intervention at the Royal Bank on Sherbrooke, close to McGill University. When I say banking, I mean an exercise rather like sticking one’s finger in the dyke; depositing a few dollars into an account in an attempt to avoid getting washed away in a sea of debt. I was sitting waiting my turn, when in walked a slim man wearing a suit and an incongruous pair of clunky walking boots. Accompanying him was Mr. Monopoly – as in the bespectacled, moustachioed, top-hat-wearing man who represents the world-famous board game.

The slim man starts shouting at the sleepy crowd of bank clients, in English.

Slim man: Excuse me! Can anyone lend us $25,000? Can anyone give Mr. Monopoly $25,000 for the limousine ride home?

At this point, I think the performance is quite amusing. I attempt to catch the slim man’s eye with my sheepish smile – wanting to convey that I am too broke to lend even a nickel. But the slim man is not really looking to interact with the crowd. No, he’s up to something entirely different. He thereupon bursts into French, which is clearly his first language.

Slim man: I want you all to know that today is Black Friday – the darkest day of the whole shopping year. Canadians will spend more money on Christmas today than on any other day of the year. So withdraw as much money as you can, spend as much money as you can. Get out there and spend all your money! Think about it!

And having hectored the rather confused crowd this way, the slim man departs, accompanied by Mr. Monopoly. Afterwards, a confused Anglophone in line asks, what was that guy talking about? An equally confused woman says she thinks it’s something about going out and shopping. I think of adding my two cents on what it was about, but opt for silent brooding instead. I like silent brooding!

I have been thinking about public space a lot in the last week – how those magic words “public space” can be invoked in order to lend gravitas to whatever an activist or artist is attempting to do. I think the general idea of many public space interventions is to try and reclaim our streets, sidewalks, malls and other gathering places from the purely profit-seeking imperative of corporations, and at the same time, to deliver a “wake-up” call to the supposedly unaware consuming citizens that are sleepwalking through their lives.

But often, public space interventions are totally pretentious, silly, and self-righteous! When an individual sets himself up as the appointed one for delivering a wake-up call to society, he (or she!) places himself outside of society. He is saying that he knows something that society doesn’t know but needs to hear. As with Mr. Monopoly and his agent, he adopts a lecturing tone with his audience – treating a group of individuals as if they are no more than a herd. He demeans the individuality of everyone in the crowd, by making vast assumptions about their behaviour and motivations.

I wasn’t in the bank trying to withdraw thousands of dollars to go on some mad Christmas spending spree! I was paying in the very first deposit for my new business partnership – Villeray Communications – which one day, hopefully, will pay me enough to eat, pay rent, heat my apartment, etc. Nevertheless, I felt the condescension for me dripping from every word of Slim Man, the agent for Mr. Monopoly. I was relieved when the dopey duo exited the building. Nobody needed them there in the first place — not even on Black Friday!