When Marina Abramovic placed herself at the mercy of a crowd of strangers in an art studio in Naples in 1974, she had no idea what to expect.
She stood before them with a sign that read:
“There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. Performance. I am the object. During this period, I took full responsibility. Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)”
At first, the participants were gentle. They kissed her, fed her chocolate cake, and put a rose in her hand. But very soon, the mood shifted.
As each person took their turn, things took a dark twist.
Abramovic’s “performance” was called Rhythm 0. The objects on the table included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet.
As Abramovi? described it later: "What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt violated: they cut up 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 audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."
Credits by online users;
“The transformation in the audience's behavior illustrates the complex interplay between the roles of the observer and the observed, shedding light on the inherent power imbalances that can emerge in such situations.
It also raises questions about the capacity for cruelty and sadism that can exist in human nature, particularly when allowed to exert control over another person”
“This work can be seen as an experiment in crowd psychology and how people's emotions and actions can change over time and circumstances. It prompts questions about the complexity and variability of the human psyche in diverse social environments”.
Rhythm 0 ranked ninth on a Complex list of the greatest works of performance art ever done.
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