nostomaniac:


Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974

&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 
Initially,&nbsp;Abramović&nbsp;said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly.&nbsp; &ldquo;The experience I learned was that &hellip; if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed&hellip; 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.&rdquo;
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo&rsquo;s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram&rsquo;s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.&rdquo; 
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who&nbsp;doesn&rsquo;t&nbsp;fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I&rsquo;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.&rdquo; 
