Mysterious speaker provides Environmental Symposium preview

by JohnRogers///News Editor

The pathway between John R. Howard Hall and Watzek Library hosted an unusual event last Wednesday morning: a student with a microphone and black marker scribbled on his face gave a speech to all those within earshot.

The speaker was Marlon Oviedo (’15), an Environmental Studies and Theatre double major. Curtis Shirey(‘15) witnessed Marlon and his speech.

“At first, I thought it was super funny and weird but I soon realized that he was saying real stuff and I appreciated his contribution regarding how to treat and respect people,” Shirey said.

According to Marlon, he gave his speech “partly to advertise the 17th Environmental Affairs Symposium … and partly as an experiment for a Theatre Independent Study” he is taking this semester.

The Environmental Affairs Symposium, titled ‘We the Anthropos’, was held from the Oct. 13 through 16. According to its website, the Symposium offered “keynote dialogue, a wide range of scholarly sessions, and other events designed for participants to forge new environmental identities with eyes wide open to contemporary ideas—ultimately to recapture imagination and hope in a world shaped by the earthbound.”

When asked to divulge the purpose of his experiment Oviedo declined, preferring to keep his intentions mysterious. He did, however, give a little sneak peak.

“You could say that I will be making a bigger performance that relates with our interactions with the non-human factors or actors around us,” Oviedo said. “We might even go into the woods when it happens.”