wanderingprostheyltite
Member
Fair warning, this is a pretty disturbing piece of performance art/experiment in human psychology that includes discussion of a woman willingly subjecting themselves to potential sexual abuse and violence from a crowd in an art gallery, but the point is certainly not just to shock and appall but discuss how this parallels something like the Stanford prison experiments and what it says about how easy it is for some people to distance themselves so drastically from basic empathy and the value of life when someone is put into a passive, subjugated role, especially willingly as is the case here. Without further ado:
NSFW (nude photos): https://humansareweird.com/2013/02/21/marina-abramovic-a-performing-artist/
She speaks on her experience doing the piece here (nsfw, only photographs from the actual performance): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d30mfVm9ug
Sounds horrifying but also kind of thought provoking that art gallery types attending such a performance would actually take it to such extremes, and more appalling that something like a gun with a bullet was actually allowed as part of it, this woman could have been killed had someone not intervened. Something tells me this wouldn't exactly be possible to pull off in a gallery today.
So is this sort of thing fairly shallow and just for shock's sake, or does it actually provoke some deeper analysis and say something about us? Particularly as it applies to abuse, people in passive states (analogous to victims in a cycle of abuse at the hands of an abuser), sexism, objectification of women as sex objects, power fantasies, etc etc. Hopefully this is within the TOS but if deemed too disturbing I understand if mods want to shut it down.
NSFW (nude photos): https://humansareweird.com/2013/02/21/marina-abramovic-a-performing-artist/
Her name is Marina Abramović.
She’s 66 years old. She’s from Serbia and based in NY. And she’s a performance artist.
“Rhythm 0, 1974”
The idea, loosely explained, was to test the limits binding the performer and the audience to their furthest degree. She did this by assigning herself a horrifically passive role, where she would stand, for six hours, in an open space, behind a table with carefully chosen objects laid upon it, and a sign explaining what she was doing, and that she would take full responsibility for what was to happen to her.
On the table, the objects she used consisted of things that could be used for pleasure, and objects that could be used for pain, as far as death:
A rose. A feather. Grapes. Honey. A condom. A whip. A scalpel. A gun. And a single bullet.
Apparently, as she explains in the interview, beginning the performance, her audience was quite playful. They were hesitant and reserved and did not think to push the boundaries.
Later, they became more aggressive. She explains it as “6 hours of real horror.” Where people tore at her clothes. Pierced her skin with a rose’s stem. Cut her with a knife and drank her blood. They carried her around, half naked, laid her down on the table and stabbed the knife in between her legs, driving it into and through the table’s surface.
It got to the stage where somebody put the bullet into the gun, and held it at her head with a finger on the trigger. Another member of the audience brushed this person aside, and diffused the situation. Another person tried to have sex with her, until (assumedly “he”he was deterred by someone else. The tension was thick, real.
After the six hours had lapsed, after she had been caressed, pricked, cut, scalded, almost raped, and almost shot in the head, the gallery’s supervisor came and said that the act was now over. She walked forward toward the audience, naked, with blood dripping from her skin, tears in her eyes. The result?
Everybody ran away. Not one person was willing to confront her active state.
She explained that that night, when she was staring at herself in the mirror of her hotel room, that she saw a long, single strand of white hair.
She speaks on her experience doing the piece here (nsfw, only photographs from the actual performance): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d30mfVm9ug
Sounds horrifying but also kind of thought provoking that art gallery types attending such a performance would actually take it to such extremes, and more appalling that something like a gun with a bullet was actually allowed as part of it, this woman could have been killed had someone not intervened. Something tells me this wouldn't exactly be possible to pull off in a gallery today.
So is this sort of thing fairly shallow and just for shock's sake, or does it actually provoke some deeper analysis and say something about us? Particularly as it applies to abuse, people in passive states (analogous to victims in a cycle of abuse at the hands of an abuser), sexism, objectification of women as sex objects, power fantasies, etc etc. Hopefully this is within the TOS but if deemed too disturbing I understand if mods want to shut it down.
