Marina Abramović, “Rhythm 0,†1974 Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art. Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,†in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted. So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people. Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite. This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted. Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.†This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances. This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn't fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I'm certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.
Wow, that's real twisted. This makes me angry for many reasons of which I am not not exactly sure of.
Humanity has been fucked. It also has it's kindness but people always focus on the negative rather than the positive.
Don't you think informing people about the bad sides of humanity so that we can try to teach them not to behave this way is better? I don't think it's that we always focus on the bad things. I think the bad things are more important. Good things happen to people all the time , if something good happens. Awesome , but what I see is when people post about good things. Others come on to the post and say hey man. What about the starving kids in Africa , what about the drone bombings killing civilians in Pakistan. I post bad and controversial things to inform people of the things that are going on past and present. So they can tell someone else and so on and so forth. Blah
I remember when art used to actually have to be art. Now a person can be a famous "artist" just for doing the whackiest shit they can possibly think of in front of an audience.
There's different niches of art , and this is performance art. She also does photography and numerous other things.... (I remember when) well it was done in 1974 , so. . .
Put yourself in a defenceless position, say you won't fight back, and allow people to use various items however they want. I'm not surprised people were violet, nature isn't a flower garden where everything loves everything. Just give killer whales a peak, they kill for fun and are fucking brutal, sometimes they even throw in some good old seal torture. Or maybe people decided to take it out on her as a form of release from their lives. No assault charges sound pretty tempting to someone with pent up tension or rage.
It's just disturbing , and they do these type of sociological field tests in various forms , and it always comes out to being that humanity is violent . It's in our nature.
I agree it's disturbing, but they say life is no cakewalk. It seems that if people are given the chance to be violent, especially with little or no consequences, they snatch it up, rather than take another route. Perhaps a more non violent one, it would probably be more beneficial.
It makes sense why humanity is inherently violent. AFAIK all living things in this universe must constantly steal energy from other things, in one way or the other, to survive. Non-violent genes seem to get wiped out unless the organism has some kind of trick up its sleeve. In other words, I believe the situation is to blame, not the species.
What is being displayed here is popularly known as the "Lucifer-effect", coined by a smart motherfucker named Philip Zombardo.. In fact, this is very similar to an experiment that he himself created to research human altruism. Shockingly, (no pun intended), most of the people given control of the electric shocks to be administered to the volunteers went ahead and cranked the voltage up to dangerous levels. Read about the Stanford prison experiment.
Think of video games. People do the things in games they can not do in real life. Especially violent games. Humans are not nice creatures. We yearn for opportunities to do things and have things but nature and society stops us. Those people still recognized right from wrong but how many chances does a person have to do wrong and there be no consequences? To test limits? Not many. Your post said they started out slow. Testing the waters to make sure what they were doing was acceptable then it escalated as things naturally would. Especially in a place with a lot of people. Group think. Laws were made so we could live together. People still probably wouldnt run around killing and hurting each other willy-nilly if we didnt have laws. Yes, they would inevitably hurt each other more because most people at one time or another do want to harm others. People naturally get angry. Though I would think though you'd have the same amount of people committing crimes now as in a lawless society but they would happen at a higher frequency though because there is no fear of punishment. Assuming people could still attain the things they wanted like medicine, food, and housing without stealing and killing. You guys were talking about some experiments that were done on obedience. Humans respect authority. Even if someone says "fuck the police" there is probably someone out there that they will defer to. All animals respect an alpha. They had a segment on Brain Games where they showed adults walking a line in a museum that took them past the exhibits so they could only see very little of the museum. All because a sign said they should stay on the line. An authority they respected said t do something and they did it even though they realized the folly. After this woman's performance if she had decided o confront all those people she probably would have retaliation. She said up things so they could harm her. Maybe she hoped people would be civilized enough not do so. But that is just a word. She lowered the constraints and allowed people the opportunity to act on their inhibitions. Show as the authority in the room and they followed her instructions. If she had imposed limits they would have followed accordingly. Did people realize they had gone too far? Nope. In a setting where there are no rules, what is too far? The act of killing her was probably the only thing that people deemed too far. Nothing to gain from seeing someone get shot anyway. Sure most of the people probably felt like a jerks for doing the worst of stuff but they'd probably all do it again if a similar situation were presented to them.
I totally agree . Group think is different from individual thought . That's why you get peaceful protests turning into riots , and stuff of that sort. I would like to think I wouldn't engage in anything like that , if I were in that room I'd maybe poke her or something. I wouldn't tear off her clothes , lay her on a table spread her legs and stab a knife between her legs into the table . That's just fucking crazy. Hopefully you watched the video.
Probably a sexual sadist or two in the room. Stabbing someone between the legs is obviously a sexual thing. Tearing off her clothes? C'mon, really? Boobs I would have stripped off her clothes if no one else did. I'm a pervert, I know it. Haha. Also it was Comic Sans font. I like the way it looks.
Pink Floyd live at Pompeii was performance art. This a desperate attempt by a talentless person to be seen as an "artist".
There's three ways to look at people either they are all out to get you and only a few are "good".They are all good and there's only a few bad eggs They are about half and half Ive seem to have thought for a while most are bad a few good. This artist proves it.Most people base assumptions about others possible motive on the blind eye psych test that was testing obedience But that's when you couldn't see the pain delivered, most did stop after hearing the pain But not seeing it Ooooo scaaaaaarrrrryyyyy boooooooo ghastliness "I experienced several more of these deeply euphoric moments on my rambles through forest and meadow. It was these experiences that shaped the main outlines of my world view and convinced me of the existence of a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality that was hidden from everyday sight" -Albert Hoffman-
Since apparently you are the one who decides what art is and isn't. To me this performance was more of a sociological test. It's still art nonetheless. To each his own though , and don't think I don't know what you mean. I see some art pieces and think what the fuck is that. I could make that shit at home.