By: Arianna Dominici ‘25
Our limitations as humans are constantly tested throughout everyday life and within the challenges we face. We, and our surrounding enablers, push to become a refined version of ourselves, but how would these instances change if society’s sense of ordinance was compromised? Marina Abramovic, a Serbian artist, is known for abstract behavioral art pieces that push her own limits, especially in the series of performances known as Rhythms. The one that particularly struck me challenged humans by testing their behavior when the regulations that prevented immorality were stripped: Rhythm 0.
Showcased at Studio Morra in Naples in 1974, Abramovic invited audience members to do anything they wanted to her using any of the provided 72 items. A gun, bullet, flower, kitchen knife, chair, scissors, and 66 other seemingly random objects were placed on a table behind her, waiting to be used. As Abramovic mentioned in an interview, the objects were “very carefully chosen”; half of them could be used for positive things, while the other half could be used for serious harm. This contrast showed the options participants were given in the exhibition and how their choices were directly oriented to their helpful or harmful mindsets. The eeriest aspect of this piece was the increasing chaos that led to its abrupt end, with all of the audience members running out the door. They first humiliated Abramovic, before they then cut her, cut off her clothes, drank her blood, aimed a loaded gun at her head, and even sexually assaulted her. It is difficult to fathom how anybody could act this way and how such a power surge could escalate to 6 hours of pure torture, yet that is what a random group of people decided to do.
They were only ashamed of what they had done when she could move and confront them, but the cowards had run out the door the second after. The main point of this exhibition was not to just test how long a person could withstand physical and physiological abuse but to see how an absolution of guilt can make many people act differently than they openly would. It was about their conscious decision to use the objects with ill intent, like when they put the bullet into the gun. Society often forgets the wrongdoings of the world and the sick minds of people, until artists like Marina Abramovic remind us in a thought-provoking and memorable way.
“Performance is just the opposite [of theater]: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real”(Abramovic, 2010).
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Edited by: Natalia Cseh '23 and Ms. Brilliant
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