TIL of RHYTHM 0 : A performance art piece in which Marina Abramović stood still for six hours while the audience could do whatever they wanted to her.

I wonder if it’s supposed to be part of the “art” - to show how depraved humans can be given a chance to do it scot-free.

Pretty sure that is literally the point of this.
I always felt like this was the whole point of the performance
Yeah, that's pretty much the point of this sort of endurance art.

Bro. Artists can be very edgy. Sculptures of naked people, paintings of people fucking, I bet there is some piece made out of rubber vaginas somewhere.

I don't justify what people did to her, but you bet she knew what it was going to happen, even the thorn part. Otherwise, she would have stopped with the performance right there and there.

Edit: she even made a gun and a bullet available to the public!! I'd rather think it was a blank, but if it wasn't, then yeah....

Edit 2: Ok, I take it back! People are fucked up indeed: "When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramović began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person."

I agree she was prepared for it and expected it but still fucked. She didn’t tell them to be cruel…she just said they were allowed to. Reminds me of the Stanford prison experiment where you kind of give people a tacit permission to be evil…so they do and then we are confronted with the aftermath. I just can’t imagine I could cause someone’s skin to bleed purposefully and not feel awful…
Not the same but related…this guy was shot as an art piece
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_(Burden)
- The Stanford prison experiment couldn't be replicated and the data are widely considered useless in psychologist community. Basically someone wanted to be famous so they created a shocking but fake study.
  
  If I correctly remember my psychology lessons from 10+ years ago though, the results of Milgram's experiment has been reproduced countless times which sort of backs up the original point.
  
  What is the original point?
  
  People are fucked up
  
  Well, thats wrong. All is tells us is, that the people in the Experiment did fucked up things. These people were raised in a fucked society, they may have experienced violence, thay may be traumatised, they may idolize the traditional male rolemodel vor they may not. What far too often gets overlooked is that you can't put people in experiments and look at them as if they where in there in a vaccum, untouched by society. Put Nazis in there you have one result. Put Queer feminist leftist in there you have another result. Put indigenous societies in the experiment, you have a different result.
  People aren't generally fucked up. Society is fucked up and that shows through the action of its people. "People are fucked up" is a very fashist thought, it means we must have a strong state that puts its siticens in the "right" place. And that is just wrong.
  (More on why people aren't fucked up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGVe4Fju0P0)
  
  Well yes and no. You can say that it's just the people in any experiment but past a certain point you have to be able to extrapolate the results to the population at large. And (again, if memory serves) the results of this experiment have been replicated numerous times across numerous population samples.
  Also, the point of Milgram isn't that people are fucked up, it's that people will follow orders when those orders are issued by someone in a perceived position of authority. And it's funny you mention Nazis because the experiment was Milgram's response to the "I was just following orders" defence from the Nuremberg trials.
  In conclusion: non-fucked-up people will do fucked up things if their boss tells them to.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=tGVe4Fju0P0
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  See my other post below for a little more context, but basically it showed that people will do awful things if someone in authority tells them to
  
  To strengthen a hypothesis.
  
  Just get any warehouse or factory in UK where the moment somebody steps up as middle management they start being ultra evil to the employees who are too weak to do anything as they're bound by visas etc.
  I've seen it happen so many times, at some point I've been offered a job position and they told me "yeah the salary is not attactuve but you get to yell at "pakis" all day"
  Like what the fuck
- The Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham and couldn't be replicated.
  This Art project still seems gruesome....
  
  There was no experiment. There was a LARP, in which the GM explicitly instructed the players to be abusive to one another. So they did. After a couple days of this bullshit, the GM's girlfriend made him stop the game.
  
  It wasn't so much a sham as it was a gigantic mess, and that's the lesson. Zimbardo conducted one hell of a mess that had to be ditched less than halfway through and was only ditched because a grad student of his came in and was appalled by what he was letting happen as part of his "role" as the warden. He'd gotten directly involved in the study and as a result fucked it all up.
No shit she knew what they were going to do. That was the point. She was making a point about how inhumane people become when they think there are no consequences for their actions.
- I knew this as well. I was just answering the parent poster since he seemed quite shocked by human nature.
Even if the gun was loaded with a blank, at any distance where she can be the one holding it (assuming it's aimed at her) a blank would still do serious damage. When a blank is fired, solid propellant typically is ejected as well as ignited propellant and metal shavings. Too close and a blank is almost like birdshot.
- Brandon Lee was killed by a blank on the set of The Crow, wasn't he?
  
  According to Wikipedia there was a squib load in the barrel, which was then pushed out by a blank round. So he was effectively shot, but the blank pushed out a bullet that was lodged in the barrel.
  
  Thanks.
- You're assuming a full-strength blank, like they use in Hollywood. It could be a round with little/no powder. That would show if someone fired, but would not actually be capable of harm.
  
  Even just a primer going off with no powder or bullet could cause serious injury or death, if the gun was held against your head.
- At least the gun was deactivated.
  
  I don't believe it was, not for the original performance. Or have I misunderstood that?
  
  Oh, I misunderstood the Tate article. For the display, it was disabled.
  
  Yeah, that's how I understood it too.
Well, there is the Great Wall of Vagina(s).

so I realize this is probably a controversial take, but is it really sexual assault in this case. She did consent to „everything“ basically

It's a controversial take that has been the subject of all sorts of debate and even legislation. Some countries don't accept sweeping consent legally for anything, some people/groups think consent must be sought, etc.
She did not explicitly state that she was OK with being touched sexually. Nor did she say she was OK being cut. She said anything goes but I believe monkey paw rules of language apply here. I would argue that the whole point here is that different people take the "permission" to different levels. I personally would never do anything to someone that I would not want done to myself unless and perhaps not even if they gave explicit permission. Here only implicit permission is given and the audience decided how far it went. Your point might have stood if there was some explicitly stated agreement that asexual acts are ok, but frankly I believe it is clear here that it does count as a violation at minimum.
- I dunno. I admire the idealism in your attitude here, but realistically we have to look at the words she herself used: "Instructions: There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. Performance: I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility."
  It strikes me that this quite explicitly states that there are no limits. I'm honestly somewhat surprised that she wasn't more seriously assaulted.
  
  but why do anything like that if she clearly didn't ask for that. Like if my mate comes over and I say "my es su casa, have free reign of the place" and he immeditaly shits on my couch I'm going to be pissed, like that's a shitty thing to do, even if I did "technically" say he could, doesn't mean you should.
  
  Because when you invite someone over, there's the additional context that they are your guest and should behave as such.
  During this performance art piece, that additional context does not exist. The only context is that provided by the artist, which did not set such limits.
  
  And ethics, morals, and the wider society.
  
  Art's raison-d'être is to challenge ethical and moral preconceptions. You seem to have missed the core value of this performance.
  Immoral art can't hurt you, the viewer. It's supposed to make you feel emotional. You should have the emotional intelligence to question those feelings and come to an understanding of why the art in question made you feel that way.
  Marina went through the effort and hassle of putting on this piece, and yet still its purpose has completely eluded you.
  
  "Artist use lies to tell the truth" The point of art can only be done in fiction, though. Once it bleeds into the real, the protective veneer of fiction wears off. Serial killers, for example, some of them at least, could be argued to have a real artistic purpose to their deranged deeds. Things that make people feel and challenge our ethical and moral preconceptions.
  They are still bastards though, they did hurt people, and it was wrong, immoral and unethical to do so.
  You also misattribute whom I blame on this subject too. She's fine as far as I am concerned. She simply choose to stand in place put some items on a table and tell people the facts of the situation, but that people that CHOOSE to act wrong are wrong for it, no matter the circumstance.
  
  Language was never meant to be taken literally all of the time and context does in fact matter. The scumfucks who sexually assaulted her just did it because they like that sort of thing and because they can. Perhaps they have anger issues with women, too.
Ya, some things come to mind I'd normally call victim blaming but she basically invited people to fuck with her. If being assaulted in multiple ways didn't cross her mind she was living in a fantasy world. Groups of people are terrible, the larger the group the more terrible they are. One person will push a boundary and then another will take it further, so on and so forth until it's just.... Mob mentality is a real thing and it's not when you see the best of humanity.
- I mean - that's the point though, right?
  She probably knew it would be bad, it went further than she expected. It's still art.
  Like how you climb a mountain, it goes bad, you lose a hand but survive, no (sane) person is like, "good."
- The point of this art is to show what humans become when they reduce a fellow person to an object.
  Every person that harmed her in any way is fundamentally a bad person, but also shares a quality with all of us in that we can all choose to become that person at any time.
  The goal of art like this is to get people to reflect upon these innate mentalities, not hopeful denial of their existence.
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. She didn't set any limits and told them to do what they wanted to her. Amazing it wasn't worse in the end.
- I agree but only in the most cold technical sense. That isn't what consent is supposed to look like though. If someone verbally consents but looks uncomfortable you should have the slightest shred of empathy to check in on them or wonder if they feel pressured to consent for whatever reason.
  
  Oh, 100%. In any other context, consent is–or should be–an ongoing event. I'm just not sure that applies in the context of endurance art.
- She didn't mean that shit literally. She didn't actually give them permission to do anything -- language doesn't work like that.
  
  "She didn't mean that shit literally" where is this stated?
  
  Common sense
  
  Language doesn't work like that.
  
  Yes it absolutely does
  
  Bless you.
  
  Thx
I think legal semantics might just be beside the point. I believe she knew the possibility was there and accepted it, but the answer she was looking for is "how far does it go" when a person essentially publicly forfeits their rights. Blanket consent, the forfeiture of those rights, they don't fundamentally change that this is a person.

They are doing it because they can.

It probably means that they would do that to anyone is they know there will be no repercussions. Like someone who is passed out drunk or a child.

I agree. I guess I understand the argument that if someone says “hey I’m going to come up here and I want everyone to hurt me, physically and sexually” then people do…it isn’t wrong. But I just can’t stomach it. Maybe I’m a prude. I guess it’s legal for consenting adults. And I guess it should be legal…
- It IS wrong. That's the whole point. Good people don't just harm innocents simply because there's an opportunity to do it without consequences. Even with consent that shit is still fucked up. The good people understood that which is why someone took the gun away and why that poor woman is still alive.
  
  I do wonder if someone would have actually killed her. Are they so deranged or was it a stunt?
  
  The possibility is as horrifying philosophically as it is literally
  
  I agree. Imagining myself in that situation literally increased my heartrate.
  
  🤔 It'd be a pretty interesting punishment for particularly heinous crimes, though. So there's that
  
  I see what you mean but let's not fuel sadistic fetishes.
  
  This also is fair. I wonder if any of the scumbags who hurt that poor woman were charged with anything.

I can't believe how there wasn't a single person in the audience who tried to stop anyone. Other than the person who took the gun away from her head. Still. No one stopped the people trying to injure or assault her. No one called anyone out? It's sickening.

I can't believe how there wasn't a single person in the audience who tried to stop anyone
Yeah, that's not what's written in the Wikipedia article.
Faced with her abdication of will, with its implied collapse of human psychology, a protective group began to define itself in the audience. When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina's head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions.
- I should stop trying to read things when I haven't slept.
  Now I'm wondering why the entire audience fled when she finally moved. No one stuck around to ask if she needed help or anything?
The group was already self selected for those interested in attending such a performance
It may be sickening, but it is what any human being would do, given the right circumstances. To be human is to be susceptible to do this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
- but it is what any human being would do, given the right circumstances.
  Bullshit. The experiment you linked isn't even close to what this is:
  They measured the willingness of study participants, 40 men in the age range of 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
  Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner".
  The people who violate the performer aren't instructed, in any way, by an authority figure, and the act isn't conflicting with their personal believe. They are psychopath.
  
  She says she takes full responsibility for what happens at the beginning. This is a big part of the milgram experiment : the scientist takes responsibility for what happens and is an important part of what explains the behavior.
  
  If someone lays a gun on a table and tells you you can do anything with the gun and you believe that is an authority figure telling you to shoot them with them with the gun then I don't want to be anywhere near you and encourage you to rethink some shit.
  
  She says she takes full responsibility for what happens at the beginning.
  Exactly. She abdicated the audience of any responsibility, which basically meant that the things that people did to her are what they would in principle do to any other person if they believed there would be no consequences for their actions.
  Nobody in their right mind would have assumed she wanted to have a gun pointed at her head or be sexually assaulted, or even had consented to them. But because she willingly put herself in a position where that might happen (i.e., no consent, but no active resistance), certain people took that to mean it was okay to do those things.
  There is only the tiniest sliver of a difference between this and any other situation where you strongly believe that you won't face consequences for your actions. How is what people did to her any different than doing the same shit to someone who was passed out drunk or even fully conscious but not in a position to defend themselves or report you?
- You should probably read the link you posted, because the results of the milgram experiment as touted by media is not really representative of what happened.
  
  65% go up to the maximum "lethal" voltage
- You just want to excuse your own bad behaviour.
  
  ???
- This is more bystander effect than submission to authority.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystandereffect