[HN Gopher] Rhythm 0
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Rhythm 0
        
       Author : board
       Score  : 308 points
       Date   : 2023-09-25 12:26 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | thriftwy wrote:
       | Isn't that the description of that the world did to Yugoslavia
       | since the last decade of the last century? It is purely tragic,
       | I've been to Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia to confirm.
       | 
       | Life imitates art.
        
       | rdtsc wrote:
       | Her art sure is provocative. If her performances were just
       | someone staring at a wall for 8 hours there would be no wikipedia
       | page on it. We'd be talking about some other outrageous
       | performance artist instead.
       | 
       | > As Abramovic described it later: "What I learned was that ...
       | if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt
       | really violated:
       | 
       | Putting a razor blade, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet on the
       | table and inviting random strangers to do whatever they like, it
       | shouldn't be surprising what happened. One can appreciate that it
       | tells a story about "what people are really like" or a commentary
       | on "conformity" or "morality". But after witnessing all horrors
       | of history, and modern day, did we really need another
       | confirmation? Perhaps she thought the people of Naples in 1974
       | had reached some enlightenment and wouldn't be like that?
       | 
       | All in all, not trying to criticize her. I appreciate performance
       | art, I even went to see "The Artist Is Present" in NY in 2010,
       | but at least this particular piece seems mostly a provocation for
       | the shock value and to gain attention.
        
         | helloplanets wrote:
         | I feel a bit skeptical about this whole piece, given how the
         | Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiment were both
         | heavily tampered with in order to get a more bombastic result.
         | [0][1]
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-epiphany-
         | industrial-c... [1]:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Validity
        
         | bondarchuk wrote:
         | > _Putting a razor blade, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet on
         | the table and inviting random strangers to do whatever they
         | like, it shouldn 't be surprising what happened._
         | 
         | Maybe it's not so surprising that it happened in 1974 Naples,
         | but I would be quite surprised indeed if the same level of
         | violence were reached in, say 2023 Tokyo, Oslo or Bern.
         | 
         | I wonder where all the commenters (you're not the only one)
         | saying this is unsurprising or predictable are from.
        
           | neaden wrote:
           | To me the problem is as an audience member here you know what
           | the artist is expecting of you. She is the one putting the
           | idea of violence into their heads by putting weapons there.
           | This is a piece of art, and a good one, not some sort of
           | psychological experiment.
        
             | itishappy wrote:
             | It may not be a good experiment, but I think there's still
             | learnings to be had.
             | 
             | If you give me a gun and say "you can put this to my head
             | if you like, idk" I'm still not going to. Clearly this
             | isn't true of everyone. That people rose to her bait is not
             | what I would have expected.
        
               | neaden wrote:
               | If a magician invited you on stage to and gave you a gun
               | and told you to point it at their head you probably would
               | though right? The audience here are part of the show, and
               | their role in it. Did the people who did things like cut
               | her think of themselves more as actors in an extreme form
               | of theater or audience members?
        
               | itishappy wrote:
               | I would shoot a magician without much hesitation,
               | assuming it to be a trick. Something in this performance
               | was different, I don't think it was a trick.
        
               | neaden wrote:
               | Not a trick, but the artist's previous works in this
               | Rhythm series were all about suffering, for instance
               | Rhythm 10 and 5 she cut her self, and Rhythm 2 she took
               | medication to give herself a seizure. If you are doing a
               | series on suffering where you injure yourself, the
               | audience is going to understand their role in the
               | performance.
        
               | itishappy wrote:
               | Right, and that's different than the magician where harm
               | was never expected.
               | 
               | I would have been uncomfortable drawing blood, even if
               | she wasn't, but I'm not surprised the audience got there.
               | 
               | I am quite surprised they put a gun to her head, and that
               | there was any level of discussion/disagreement about it's
               | use.
        
         | fallat wrote:
         | It's essentially an invitation to test the boundaries.
         | 
         | "Here's some razor blades and nails, do what you want, I am an
         | art piece!"
         | 
         | Everyone immediately thinks "well I guess she wants us to test
         | her with this stuff"
         | 
         | It's more of a stunt than anything... and since everything and
         | anything can be art... sure... But I'd rather call it a stunt
        
           | terryf wrote:
           | The fact that you state that "an invitation to test the
           | boundaries" and focus on the razors and nails says something
           | about you (and probably humanity in general as well).
           | 
           | If you were present then what would you have done?
           | 
           | After all you could have given her a hug. Or used the feather
           | to make her laugh. There were nice things on the table to
           | choose from.
           | 
           | But yeah, I'd probably have done something not so nice as
           | well. But why is that?
        
             | ghodith wrote:
             | I think the point is that the objects provided have a large
             | influence on the actions of the audience. If there were
             | only feathers and face paint I would think the outcome
             | would have been very different. Keeping that in mind might
             | change what conclusions someone takes away from the whole
             | thing.
        
       | throDisASwayze wrote:
       | Abromovic's art isn't for everyone, but you can't really deny
       | that this produced some really crazy reactions.
       | 
       | All modern art produces strong opinions in the audience, but
       | performance art trips a lot of peoples BS sensor.
       | 
       | That said, I don't know how you see the results of this and not
       | come away at least thinking about what happened. Which is the
       | point, and that makes it successful as art.
       | 
       | She is also a focal point of paranoid speculation among pizza-
       | gate and Q types. They think that elites use her as some
       | performance art shaman that helps them do something? Not sure
       | what, but its bad.
        
         | flkenosad wrote:
         | It's an attack on the human spirit in a way. The message is,
         | "look, humanity IS truly awful." People walk away from it
         | thinking, "Maybe everyone is evil." Now, does that serve a good
         | purpose in this world? Seems a little satanic to me.
        
           | demondemidi wrote:
           | Satanic? Where did that come from?
        
           | marcinreal wrote:
           | I had a similar thought. It seems like an attack on morality,
           | implying that there is no true morality or God-given
           | conscience, only fear of consequences.
           | 
           | > After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started
           | walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an
           | actual confrontation.
           | 
           | Hard to judge from the wiki page, there are so little
           | details, but this sounds fake and staged. I think there were
           | less stunts back then so people were more trusting. At any
           | rate, I get strong vibes of some kind of agenda here, and
           | you're right that it's probably not a godly one.
        
             | terryf wrote:
             | The bounds of morality are a social construct. So, if you
             | stage something that is purposefully meant to create an
             | environment that seems to be outside of society, you will
             | get behaviour that is not bound by regular social norms and
             | morality. It is possible that saying this was the artist's
             | goal, but who knows.
             | 
             | But yes, there is no true morality. How can there be? In
             | nature, there is only survival. A lion is happy to find
             | some prey thas has had a stroke of bad luck and gotten
             | stuck or hurt so it can't easily fight back.
             | 
             | And the previous paragraph is not meant to say that the
             | lion is evil. No, the lion simply is.
        
           | raincole wrote:
           | Perhaps I'm just a cynical person, but the only reaction I
           | had when I read about this for the first time was "look,
           | humanity isn't that awful at all."
        
           | mcphage wrote:
           | > It's an attack on the human spirit in a way. The message
           | is, "look, humanity IS truly awful." It didn't _have_ to be
           | an attack on the human spirit. It was open to that, and open
           | to something positive. But people didn 't take the positive
           | route.
           | 
           | > People walk away from it thinking, "Maybe everyone is
           | evil." Now, does that serve a good purpose in this world?
           | Seems a little satanic to me.
           | 
           | That's kinda weird, given that the belief that "everyone is
           | evil" is one of the core ideas of Christianity. Well,
           | everyone but one person, I suppose.
        
             | flkenosad wrote:
             | > the belief that "everyone is evil" is one of the core
             | ideas of Christianity.
             | 
             | Huh, never heard that before.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | wizofaus wrote:
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
        
               | samus wrote:
               | Different branches of Christianity have their own view on
               | what the Original Sin means. Catholic teaching assumes
               | that humans lost their supernatural attributes during the
               | Fall (most importantly, perfect free will) that should
               | have prevented them from sinning. Humans are still good,
               | but their desires can overcome what's left of their free
               | will. Protestant teaching tends to teach that human
               | nature has been corrupted by the Fall and is mostly evil
               | now.
        
               | mcphage wrote:
               | Um. What has been your exposure to Christian theology?
        
               | schoen wrote:
               | Some people would probably formulate the notion of
               | original sin as "everyone is inclined to evil" or
               | "everyone is prone to evil" or "everyone is vulnerable to
               | committing evil" or "everyone is broken" or "everyone
               | needs help against evil" rather than "everyone 'is'
               | evil".
        
               | mcphage wrote:
               | Wouldn't that defeat the need for Jesus, then?
        
               | schoen wrote:
               | Maybe some of my formulations are too weak. How about
               | "everyone has a nature that will lead him or her to do
               | wrong and incur guilt"?
        
               | Exoristos wrote:
               | Traditionally, Christ is the savior (rescuer) from all
               | kinds of life's ills, not only from the much-ballyhooed
               | (in Protestant circles) fate of dying a jackass.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | Views on how Atonement works are at the very core of the
               | doctrinal differences between Christian denominations.
               | Painting with very rough strokes, the general agreement
               | is that without Jesus' sacrifice and the Faith, humans
               | would be doomed to stay in sin and never be reconciled
               | with God.
        
               | mcphage wrote:
               | That mirrors my broad understanding as well.
        
               | flkenosad wrote:
               | By no means an expert, but I know lots of Christians.
               | That's not how they talk. But, I mean, every church is
               | different.
        
               | skrebbel wrote:
               | I could ask you the same. Ideas like "love thy neighbour"
               | don't feel very "everybody is evil" to me.
               | 
               | I recognize that there are Christian doom cults that
               | think everyone is evil but I'm surprised by how plainly
               | you call that a "core belief". It does not fit in any way
               | the (moderate protestant) way I was raised, and it
               | doesn't match the beliefs of my catholic friends either.
               | Every devout Christian I know (though I know only a few)
               | is an optimist about humanity.
        
               | mcphage wrote:
               | > I could ask you the same.
               | 
               | Raised Catholic through confirmation. Long time atheist,
               | although I attend my wife's evangelical protestant
               | church. So admittedly an outsider's view on all of this.
               | 
               | > Ideas like "love thy neighbour" don't feel very
               | "everybody is evil" to me.
               | 
               | I don't know why those would be incompatible. People can
               | be evil, but you can love them all the same.
               | 
               | > I'm surprised by how plainly you call that a "core
               | belief".
               | 
               | Really? Sin and the need for Jesus's salvation are
               | universal through the branches of Christianity I've
               | experienced. They use different terms for it--Catholicism
               | talks about "original sin", protestants talk about
               | "mankind's sin nature". I know nothing about Orthodox
               | Christianity, but I would expect them to fit in there
               | somewhere. Catholics and Protestants argue about
               | salvation through faith or salvation through works, but
               | they both see it as something desirable.
               | 
               | There are lots of branches of Christianity, and so I
               | don't have a full picture, but I've never heard of one
               | that didn't share this belief, and I'm not sure I'd
               | understand what their faith is all about at that point.
               | But if you've got some info, I'm happy to learn more. I
               | kinda hate to quote Wikipedia here, but it mirrors my
               | understanding:
               | 
               | > The doctrine of sin is central to the Christian faith,
               | since its basic message is about redemption in Christ.
               | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_sin)
               | 
               | Maybe my outsider's take on it is off, but calling these
               | beliefs satanic seems way out there to me.
        
               | flkenosad wrote:
               | Thanks for this info. I see what you're saying. To
               | clarify, I meant a _little_ satanic. As in, "giving
               | satan" vibes. Not some truly evil ritual.
               | 
               | > I kinda hate to quote Wikipedia here
               | 
               | I don't mind wikipedia but it has some weird branches.
               | Recommended reading, start here:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_ethics
               | 
               | From the top of that page:
               | 
               | > Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a
               | multi-faceted ethical system. It is a virtue ethic, which
               | focuses on building moral character, and a deontological
               | ethic which emphasizes duty. It also incorporates natural
               | law ethics, which is built on the belief that it is the
               | very nature of humans - created in the image of God and
               | capable of morality, cooperation, rationality,
               | discernment and so on - that informs how life should be
               | lived, and that awareness of sin does not require special
               | revelation.
               | 
               | > awareness of sin does not require special revelation.
               | 
               | Then jump into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
               | 
               | The link you provided highlights the word "Hamartiology"
               | which I just learned is the study of sin. I've never
               | heard of this study before but I have studied some
               | Buddhist teachings. Buddhists teach that when you steady
               | your attention on a mental object, that object grows (for
               | example gratitude). To me, it follows that studying sin
               | leads to increased sin.
               | 
               | I think many modern Christians understand this and,
               | therefore, sin is no longer such a central tenant to the
               | faith.
        
         | Gimpei wrote:
         | I don't see what the difference is between this performance and
         | one of the earlier experiments in social psychology by Milgrom
         | and Zimbardo. There's no way she didn't get the idea from them.
         | So, to me, this is neither original nor interesting.
         | 
         | In general, I don't see the point of conceptual art, as it
         | presupposes that the artist has some privileged perspective on
         | the world that they can enlighten us all with. For me, this is
         | a problem much better suited to the scientific method. And
         | anyway, if the only point of your art is some abstract theory,
         | why not write it out clearly on a single sheet of paper? I know
         | it won't win you the Turner prize, but it will save us all a
         | lot of time.
        
           | RIMR wrote:
           | For someone who respects the scientific method, you seem
           | awfully dismissive of peer review...
           | 
           | So what if Milgrom and Zimbardo's studies in conformity
           | already happened? We don't run an experiment once and stick
           | with the results forever. That's patently un-scientific.
           | 
           | Regardless, just because you didn't understand the piece,
           | doesn't mean it's not art, and just because you found
           | scientific studies to be more conclusive doesn't mean that
           | this performance failed to further our understanding.
        
           | telmo wrote:
           | "Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything
           | that counts can be counted" (attributed to Albert Einstein)
        
           | bondarchuk wrote:
           | > _In general, I don't see the point of conceptual art, as it
           | presupposes that the artist has some privileged perspective
           | on the world that they can enlighten us all with._
           | 
           | The privilege is simply that they went out and did it, I
           | think. Someone wants to see what happens when you do XYZ,
           | they do XYZ, and that's it. I don't know why this is taken as
           | a sign of extreme arrogance or anything.
        
         | epolanski wrote:
         | No type of art is for everyone, and this will have plenty of
         | "it's not art, it's just a performance" detractors.
         | 
         | I'm not qualified to make these judgements nor I car for them.
         | 
         | But I think too, that's extremely hard to ignore her
         | experimental work in studying the relationship between a
         | performance and the audience.
         | 
         | She's been an absolutely terrific pioneer in the field and her
         | work will certainly outlive her.
        
         | nashashmi wrote:
         | I know this was supposed to be a demonstration of how evil
         | humanity can become. But it failed to show humanity as
         | gravitationally evil. Rather, it was a celebratory joy of how
         | much humanity can be divided, how guilty it can feel, and how
         | courageous or fake are its actions in face of conflict.
         | 
         | This was not art. This was a challenge. And "artist" submitted
         | her life away.
        
         | mikrotikker wrote:
         | I like her cannibal art where she has actors play dead bodies
         | on a grazing table as the rich and famous pick food made into
         | simulated body parts off the actors and chow down. The metaphor
         | there is just so on point.
        
       | redder23 wrote:
       | I would love to see a video of this and know what kind of people
       | there were in the audience. I do not thing this would turn out
       | like this at all in any western country.
        
         | samaysharma wrote:
         | I haven't seen a full video but
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMWiFKl8K2o talking about it
         | has quite a few pictures / snippets. This was done in Italy.
        
         | regularjack wrote:
         | This happened in a western country.
        
       | tdba wrote:
       | Legally speaking what would have happened if an audience member
       | had actually shot and killed her? As I understand it you can't
       | actually give someone permission to kill you, at least in the
       | USA.
        
         | StevenWaterman wrote:
         | I think you answered your own question there, they would be
         | arrested and tried for murder.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | In this case, you want Italian laws, as it happened in Naples.
         | But I'm not familiar at all with it.
         | 
         | Performance art seems to regularly skirt laws, for better or
         | worse. For example, if you participated in Seedbed by Vito
         | Acconci (when Acconci is crawling around in the roof-space,
         | masturbating while talking to you), could you claim sexual
         | assault?
         | 
         | No idea, but I could probably think of at least 5 performance
         | art cases that are borderline illegal but nothing ever happened
         | as it's part of "art" or whatever.
        
           | lancesells wrote:
           | Nowadays they usually have you sign something that says you
           | agree to XYZ.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Being an artist really offers you no immunity from the law
           | (or just cops, who often have little understanding of the
           | law). Music performers have quite often been arrested by
           | local authorities following performances.
           | 
           | Examples:
           | 
           | Jim Morrison (The Doors) - Miami, 1969: Jim Morrison was
           | arrested for indecent exposure and profanity during a chaotic
           | concert, leading to a highly publicized legal battle.
           | 
           | Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) - Various, Late 1970s: Sid Vicious
           | faced multiple arrests, including for the alleged murder of
           | his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in 1978, though he died before a
           | trial could take place.
           | 
           | Ozzy Osbourne - San Antonio, 1982: Ozzy Osbourne was arrested
           | for public intoxication and urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph,
           | a historic monument.
           | 
           | Marilyn Manson - Michigan, 2001: Marilyn Manson and his
           | bandmates were arrested on charges of criminal sexual conduct
           | involving a security guard during a concert.
           | 
           | N.W.A. - Detroit, 1989: N.W.A. members were arrested for
           | performing their controversial song "F** tha Police" during a
           | concert, leading to a brief detention.
           | 
           | 2 Live Crew - Florida, 1990: 2 Live Crew faced obscenity
           | charges over their explicit lyrics in their album "As Nasty
           | As They Wanna Be," resulting in their arrest and a high-
           | profile legal battle.
           | 
           | Pussy Riot - Moscow, 2012: Members of the feminist punk band
           | Pussy Riot were arrested for staging a protest performance in
           | a Moscow cathedral against the Russian government.
           | 
           | Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses) - St. Louis, 1991: Axl Rose was
           | arrested after a riot broke out during a Guns N' Roses
           | concert, with Rose allegedly inciting the crowd to violence.
           | 
           | GG Allin - Various, 1980s-1990s: Known for his extreme and
           | often violent stage antics, GG Allin frequently faced arrests
           | for indecent exposure, assault, and other charges during his
           | performances.
        
             | riffic wrote:
             | It's so funny how this was almost my same exact (deleted)
             | comment.
             | 
             | There is a certain level of intellectual dishonesty in
             | leaving your comment up, knowing it is mostly not your
             | words. It would be fair to tell your comment was mostly a
             | chatgpt authored one that I chose to delete knowing that
             | same intellectual dishonesty you now know.
             | 
             | (knock it off and don't ever do it again)
        
               | bowmessage wrote:
               | Why did you post it in the first place?
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | 90 days in jail:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIVZDpT5cQg
        
         | siva7 wrote:
         | Murder. It's not like an art performance will be given an
         | excemption from italian (or any other) laws.
        
       | riffic wrote:
       | Yoko Ono did it in 1964
       | 
       | https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yoko-ono-cut-piece-...
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | Slightly different though.
         | 
         | "Cut Piece" worst case: she end up nude
         | 
         | "Rhythm 0" worst case: someone ends up
         | shooting/stabbing/killing her, or rape.
        
           | garyrob wrote:
           | Yoko did innovate and this piece might not have existed
           | without her. But that should not take away at all from what
           | Abramovic did. The fact that Beethoven built on the
           | innovations of earlier artists does not diminish Beethoven.
        
       | edgineer wrote:
       | At least a couple others have recreated this performance, and
       | most striking to me is the survivorship bias. Guess if the videos
       | where literally nothing interesting happened went viral with
       | commenters praising the artist's safety among the audience.
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | It sure ain't Bach. She succeeded against a self imposed
       | constraint of her anxiety and baited needy and damaged people to
       | reveal their own perversions. What a circle jerk. Demonstrations
       | of human capacity for ugliness are a lot easier than revealing
       | something beautiful. I've met a few people over the years who set
       | themselves up to be victimized so that they could feel justified
       | in their own malice toward the world, and it's a banal
       | psychological trope you'd think people wouldn't fall for. A lot
       | of conceptual and performance art to me is just sickness.
       | 
       | The only thing that makes her interesting as a phenomena is how
       | she appears as an enabler and convener in the orbit of some
       | cunning and opportunistic men whose nihilism she would seem to
       | validate for them. When you see our purpose as being to renew
       | life and thrive, to me this kind of worship of consuming material
       | experiences that Abramovic is known for is a spiritual poverty.
        
         | bergen wrote:
         | What a take. How is she exactly to blame for the way this
         | turned out? She set the stage for SOMETHING to happen, wether
         | good or bad things happened was completely up to the audience.
         | To see this and say "this is sickness" and "she invited people
         | to harm here" is baffling. You seem extremely judgemental.
        
           | GuB-42 wrote:
           | She has already performed acts of violence on herself. Acts a
           | good part of her audience most likely has seen and
           | appreciated, why would they go see her otherwise? And among
           | the items were weapons and other instruments of pain. The
           | name "rhythm 0" follows the same pattern as her other
           | performances that involved self-harm.
           | 
           | So yes, I consider it an invitation to harm her.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | garciasn wrote:
         | I mean, I know nothing more about the piece than what I've just
         | read, but wow, that's a take and a half. I just cannot fathom
         | viewing what she attempted the way you did.
         | 
         | If anything, it offered the opportunity for humanity to reveal
         | something beautiful, but instead, the audience took the
         | opposite opportunity--something I honestly feel you have done
         | here, but in words, which I almost felt as thorns in my
         | bellybutton.
        
           | rcoveson wrote:
           | If she wanted to see people acting beautifully, she would
           | have performed it at a soup kitchen, or a temple. Or even
           | just in a little cul-de-sac in an average neighborhood where
           | people know each other and kids are present. Everyday places
           | full of totally average people who aren't used to twisting
           | their minds into scenarios on the ninth meta-level above
           | reality.
           | 
           | All she succeeded in showing is that _her audience_ is full
           | of people obsessed with the ugliness of humanity.
        
           | shwaj wrote:
           | There's another anecdotal comment where someone heard that
           | the audience was too tame, and some time into the performance
           | they were prompted/goaded into interacting in more
           | controversial ways, otherwise the performance would have been
           | a dud.
           | 
           | If this is true, then it tends to support the GP post's take:
           | there was an intention to bring out the worst, not a neutral
           | attempt to see what would happen.
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | Were you able to find anything backing that up? I wasn't,
             | and this is a very famous and thoroughly analyzed piece of
             | art. Given the lack of evidence I'm leaning towards not
             | believing that anonymous third-hand account.
        
             | rcoveson wrote:
             | Even if we disregard the anecdote, we can at least infer
             | that the intention was to make an original, evocative piece
             | of performance art. How does that implied goal cause people
             | to act? Like a bunch of avant-garde nutjobs, maybe?
        
           | burkaman wrote:
           | Agreed, that is one of the worst comments I've ever seen on
           | HN. I am usually able to understand and empathize with
           | opinions I disagree with, but that comment is just
           | incomprehensible. I guess that's the point of the piece? I
           | don't know if I would have been exposed to a worldview so
           | opposite to mine if we didn't have this artwork to discuss.
        
         | jakelazaroff wrote:
         | Honestly flabbergasted by your reply. How did she bait anyone?
         | How did she set herself up to be victimized? People could have
         | just... not been violent. That would have been an entirely
         | plausible outcome, yet here we are.
        
           | peoplefromibiza wrote:
           | > People could have just... not been violent
           | 
           | In Naples...?
           | 
           | https://www-ilmattino-
           | it.translate.goog/napoli/cronaca/spara...
           | 
           | https://www-napolivillage-
           | com.translate.goog/cronaca/allaren...
        
             | bergen wrote:
             | Ah yes, the infamous city of Naples, where people have been
             | intrinsically violent and bad people for decades, because
             | .. Naples.
        
               | peoplefromibiza wrote:
               | As Italian, with half of the family from Naples area,
               | yes, that one.
        
           | stouset wrote:
           | "She shouldn't have been wearing those kinds of clothes if
           | she didn't want that to happen."
        
             | ADcorpo wrote:
             | Thank you for this comment, I had a hard time pinpointing
             | exactly what made me feel uneasy about all those answers
             | justifying the audience behavior or explaining that they
             | were setup for violence because various harmful objects
             | were present.
             | 
             | It is indeed the same way of thinking.
             | 
             | If you murder someone, I don't see how you could blame them
             | for being too close to a knife or gun. Having the
             | opportunity to do something does not systematically justify
             | doing it.
             | 
             | edit: this logic does not apply even if the person brought
             | the harmful object with them, the decision to do the harm
             | is ultimately not made by the victim.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, but please don't fulminate or post in the flamewar style.
         | We're trying for the opposite here, and you can make your
         | substantive points without any of that.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | Tao3300 wrote:
           | I don't agree with the commentator, but I think with extreme
           | pieces like this _any and all_ interpretations are on the
           | table. Challenging and disruptive things aren 't always
           | handled eloquently or reasonably, otherwise they wouldn't be
           | challenging and disruptive.
           | 
           | Consider reactions you'd rather not see here as extensions of
           | regrettable behaviors in the performance of the piece. In
           | other words, did 'Rhythm 0' ever really end, or are we all in
           | it?
           | 
           | This is a terrible place to talk about art. We probably
           | should avoid it entirely because the flamewars are
           | inevitable.
        
         | civilized wrote:
         | I don't fully agree with this comment, but some repliers here
         | would benefit from additional context.
         | 
         | Here is the table of materials Marina provided to be used on
         | her: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/women-
         | artists/r...
         | 
         | At least two thirds of the table is covered in various
         | instruments of harm. What does that say to the viewer?
         | 
         | I think "baiting needy and damaged people to reveal their own
         | perversions" is a fair characterization, although it may not be
         | a _complete_ one.
        
           | burkaman wrote:
           | > What does that say to the viewer?
           | 
           | I am interested in your answer to this question. My answer
           | would not be "oh she must want us to hurt her with those".
           | When I visit someone's house and they have a decorative
           | hunting rifle hanging on the wall, I don't assume that they
           | want me to shoot them with it.
           | 
           | I'm sure there are a thousand different interpretations of
           | that table, one would be that she's pointing out how everyone
           | is as vulnerable as she is, just less visibly. Everything on
           | that table is an object that anyone can easily acquire and
           | walk around with (and use). I have no idea, but "please
           | attack me" would be my absolute last thought.
           | 
           | I understand there were suggestive instructions, but it's a
           | piece of art produced by a human being. Nirvana has a song
           | called "rape me", what does that say to the listener? Do you
           | think it is meant to say "please rape the members of this
           | band"?
        
             | chankstein38 wrote:
             | I'm not saying I'd go bad either but when I go to my
             | friend's house and they've got decorative hunting rifles
             | they usually lack a sign instructing to "Use this on me
             | however you wish"
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | But if there were such a sign, you still wouldn't shoot
               | them. So in what context would you actually shoot? Maybe
               | if it was a stranger instead of your friend? Maybe if
               | they said "don't worry, it's art, it's ok"? I'm trying to
               | understand what about the context here is making the
               | audience members' actions seem normal and expected to
               | some commenters here.
        
               | chankstein38 wrote:
               | That's fair. Honestly I think the difference I'm thinking
               | about is deindividuation stemming from being in a crowd
               | that is in this situation. I'm still pretty sure I
               | wouldn't shoot but if everyone else was poking with a pen
               | I might also.
               | 
               | I guess my point is that there are a lot of factors in
               | this situation that aren't just individuals making
               | decisions.
               | 
               | Even thinking about the Milgram experiment, though of
               | course that was authority figures telling them what to
               | do, in a crowd I feel like the people who take charge and
               | start some action typically end up being a defacto
               | authority figure.
               | 
               | I don't think you're wrong though that there are
               | DEFINITELY some outliers in this. The blood drinking is
               | weird. The person holding the gun to her head is probably
               | cause for a mental evaluation.
               | 
               | But, overall, I feel like I can't blame some of the more
               | mild cases presented here for their actions.
        
             | civilized wrote:
             | What it says to me is not necessarily "please attack me"
             | but "I want to see what happens if you are offered these
             | temptations, and this is most of what I am interested in
             | during this performance".
             | 
             | It's quite dark. She could have offered many other more
             | benign, creative, playful options.
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | She did, there's a full list here:
               | https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/abramovic-
               | rhythm-0-t148...
               | 
               | Only ~6 of them are things that I would classify as
               | "weapons", and maybe ~10 others are not weapons but
               | things that you could obviously use to hurt her
               | (scissors, needle, etc.) There was food, paint, clothes,
               | makeup for anyone that wanted to do something benign and
               | creative.
               | 
               | I disagree that the weapons were "temptations". It is not
               | normal to be tempted to hurt someone merely because you
               | have a weapon and opportunity.
        
               | civilized wrote:
               | You're quite sure you don't see the difference between
               | (1) a decorative hunting rifle and (2) laying out a large
               | array of weapons and other dangerous objects for an
               | audience and saying the following to that audience?
               | 
               | > 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.
               | 
               | I agree it's not normal to want to hurt someone just
               | because you have an opportunity, but you _really_ don 't
               | see the artist doing _anything_ to shift the
               | possibilities of  "normal", by phrasing the instructions
               | in this way?
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | I do see a difference, I just don't agree that the
               | intended message is "please literally hurt me". Even if
               | you believe that is the intended message, it still isn't
               | rational or acceptable to act on it.
        
               | civilized wrote:
               | We agreed on that two posts ago, so maybe there's nothing
               | further to discuss.
        
             | skrebbel wrote:
             | A table with a eg handsaw "that one can use on me as
             | desired" is very different from a hunting rifle on a wall.
             | The sign explicitly encourages people to use the items on
             | the artist. It's really not far off from literally spelling
             | out "please attack me".
             | 
             | Of course that doesn't excuse people who do so in any way,
             | they're still the perpetrator. But I think your hunting
             | rifle comparison isn't very good.
        
               | UncleOxidant wrote:
               | > A table with a eg handsaw "that one can use on me as
               | desired"
               | 
               | Does that not reveal the desires of the people who used
               | the implements on her? (such as the one who cut her
               | throat and drank her blood?). People could have chosen to
               | _not_ use the implements on her.
        
               | joemi wrote:
               | I agree. I think the fact that people had a choice _not
               | to_ use an implement is just as important as the fact
               | that they had a choice _to_ use an implement. Also
               | important: _how_ the implement was used. When I read
               | about this performance, it's pretty immediately evident
               | that the choice was a large part of this performance.
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | Ok, what about songs titled "Rape Me" or "Kill Me". When
               | you heard "Try That in a Small Town", did that inspire
               | you to go to a small town and actually try it? Does it
               | confuse you when people attending a live Papa Roach show
               | don't actually try to cut his life into pieces? I mean he
               | literally just told them to, how could it be any more
               | spelled out?
               | 
               | Maybe music doesn't count for some reason. How about
               | something more interactive, like those "living history"
               | reenactment villages
               | (https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/). An actor comes
               | up and challenges you to a duel. Do you accept and
               | actually fight them? Someone on a soapbox in the town
               | square is exhorting listeners to take up arms against the
               | redcoats. As a matter of fact, you just toured an armory,
               | and you see a patrol of British soldiers a few hundred
               | feet away. Do you go arm yourself and attack the
               | soldiers? Can you point to something concrete that
               | differentiates these live interactive performers from
               | Abramovic?
               | 
               | Is there any other piece of art where you'd take the
               | content literally and attack the performer? Actually it's
               | more than that, because if I took these instructions
               | literally I still wouldn't attack her, since I don't
               | desire to. You are making a leap that I still don't
               | understand from "use as desired" to "well obviously
               | anyone would desire to hurt her".
        
               | Joeboy wrote:
               | You are either pretending, or refusing, or failing, to
               | understand subtext and intent.
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | Yes I am failing to understand the subtext other people
               | are reading into this piece, and haven't seen a single
               | comment attempt to explain it. What is the chain of logic
               | that leads from "it says to do whatever I want" to "I
               | will attack"?
        
               | Joeboy wrote:
               | I wasn't there and didn't attack anybody, but the chain
               | of logic suggested is that Abramovic was known for works
               | involving bodily discomfort, injury and risk, and that it
               | was reasonable to assume she intended this piece to be in
               | a similar vein. In that context, placing dangerous
               | objects on a table and saying "one can use [them] on me
               | as desired" is not just saying the objects exist, in the
               | same way that saying "do you have any ketchup?" is not
               | just asking whether your host possesses ketchup.
               | 
               | I can see why somebody might be uncomfortable with the
               | general _shape_ of argument from a  "victim blaming"
               | point of view. If you _genuinely_ _don 't_ _understand_
               | it then again, not trying to be a dick here but perhaps
               | you don 't understand subtext and intent in the way most
               | people do.
        
               | burkaman wrote:
               | Thank you, this is a good explanation, but it isn't
               | addressing my core point. I understand that Abramovic
               | intentionally put herself in a vulnerable position, and
               | that the instructions and weapons are intended to say
               | something like "you could hurt me with these". What I am
               | still not understanding is the transition from "could" to
               | "should". The context, that this is an art piece and the
               | artist has performatively hurt herself in the past, to me
               | _reinforces_ the idea that I shouldn 't actually hurt
               | her. To me the message is "I could, but we're both human
               | beings so obviously I won't". To me, someone who takes it
               | so literally that they actually attack is missing the
               | subtext and context that this is art, this is a
               | performance, this is a person and not a statue. They are
               | failing to understand the difference between could and
               | should.
               | 
               | The question I responded to is: "At least two thirds of
               | the table is covered in various instruments of harm. What
               | does that say to the viewer?" I maintain that "it says
               | I'm supposed to hurt her" is not a rational answer. With
               | the additional context that she usually hurts herself in
               | these performances, it is understandable to have that
               | thought, but not understandable or rational to act on it.
               | I can think of lots of art that is intended to make you
               | think about your capacity to hurt innocent people, but
               | none that is intended to make you actually act on that.
               | 
               | Let me put it one other way: the commenter I initially
               | replied to said that the presence of weapons on the table
               | is useful context that should explain the actions of the
               | audience members. I disagree, I don't think the presence
               | of weapons is relevant at all or provides any amount of
               | justification. I think the context you provided, that she
               | usually hurts herself, is useful and does change my
               | interpretation of her intent, but it still doesn't
               | justify what anybody did. I still don't understand why
               | somebody would choose to attack her. I also am a little
               | bit skeptical that the audience would have been familiar
               | with her other work. I'm not sure how the audience was
               | chosen, but I don't believe the average person would have
               | any idea who she was.
        
               | Joeboy wrote:
               | I'm not really clear what "supposed to" or "should" mean
               | here. I'm pretty certain the audience would've understood
               | it was _expected_ that Abramovic would sustain some sort
               | of injury or discomfort, in line with her other pieces. I
               | very much doubt anybody would subject themselves to a six
               | hour performance without any idea what to expect. If
               | nobody had obliged, I think it 's fair to assume
               | Abramovic would've left disappointed, and would probably
               | not be the conceptual art superstar she is today.
               | 
               | There's a whole world of consensual injury that to be
               | honest I'm fairly personally prudish about, but nobody is
               | making either of us participate in it. If people want to
               | do it, if I'm honest I'm _slightly_ judgmental but I feel
               | like I should be less so.
        
               | rcoveson wrote:
               | This is art. Think about writing a book, directing a TV
               | show, or putting on a play. What should happen? There
               | should probably be intrigue, emotion, and excitement.
               | Very likely violence and evil. We should explore a broad
               | spectrum of emotion. It's perfectly likely that most of
               | what we explore is negative emotion, because originality
               | is hard and positive emotion is arguably over-explored if
               | you look at art as a whole through all of human history.
               | 
               | But this isn't just some mass-produced movie or family-
               | friendly Broadway production. This is _the cutting edge
               | of art_. It 's supposed to _challenge_ us. So perhaps we
               | 'll go beyond merely pretending at violence and do a tiny
               | bit of actual violence. It's plausible, from a
               | participant's perspective, that the creator of the piece
               | intended that.
               | 
               | That's what I imagine the participants are thinking,
               | anyways. They aren't just average folks of the street,
               | after all, they're attendees at a crazy art exhibit.
               | They've got to compete with people who hang themselves up
               | by hooks driven through their skin, people who bite the
               | heads of bats during rock concerts, and people who whip
               | each other bloody in sadist orgies.
        
               | EatingWithForks wrote:
               | I would still disagree. _Someone apparently drank her
               | blood_ which is totally out of pocket with seeing a knife
               | on a table, honestly, and is not justified by  "well
               | there was a knife there".
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | esrauch wrote:
               | I don't know, it seems pretty in pocket with seeing "this
               | is an art exhibit and I want wild shit to happen".
               | 
               | Comparing it to a normal real world interaction where you
               | expect people to just hang out and chat is ridiculous, if
               | people just chatted it would be a totally failed set
               | piece.
        
               | EatingWithForks wrote:
               | I dunno, when I saw this, I wanted to draw flowers on her
               | skin instead, since she provided the rose as reference,
               | and I do a bit of art myself. If people instead painted
               | her, put her in robes, braided her hair or something else
               | nonviolent, wouldn't that also be a spectacle?
        
               | esrauch wrote:
               | It absolutely would not be a spectacle to the degree of
               | being discussed on a technology site 50 years later if
               | people braided her hair.
               | 
               | It's not an accident that she put a number of violent
               | items out and had her assistants riling people up,
               | something like "someone drank her blood" is exactly what
               | it takes to make it into art history.
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | Other important context is her past performances [0]. Rhythm
           | 0 is the last of five performances in which she injured
           | herself, intentionally lost consciousness, and took
           | medications that gave her seizures. In one of the
           | performances a sympathetic audience came to her rescue when
           | she fell unconscious, so she performed the next one alone
           | with a cameraman who was instructed not to intervene. Once
           | again, in contrast to the picture of humanity she seemed
           | determined to paint, _he intervened anyway._
           | 
           | Given that history, I sure wouldn't have shown up for _Rhythm
           | 0_ , and I don't know many decent people who would have
           | either.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#Rhyth
           | m_1...
        
           | bondarchuk wrote:
           | Oh well it quite changes my view of events that she herself
           | provided the loaded gun. I did not read the wiki article that
           | way.
        
         | GuB-42 wrote:
         | > Demonstrations of human capacity for ugliness are a lot
         | easier than revealing something beautiful.
         | 
         | Not always. See that Acali experiement (
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acali ).
         | 
         | To make it short: An experimenter took a bunch of people, put
         | them a raft expecting sex and violence, instead, they became
         | best friends.
        
         | itishappy wrote:
         | Maybe it was about more than just her?
        
         | popcorncowboy wrote:
         | "..scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a
         | bullet"
         | 
         | The naivety in some of the responses to your take surprise me.
         | If you walked into the centre of London, Sydney or NYC, setup a
         | table which included these objects and invited the public to do
         | whatever they wanted to you, the general outcome is fairly
         | predictable. And the protagonists can present the profundity of
         | their scene as insight and call it art. So, bravo them.
        
           | skipants wrote:
           | I agree. And something overlooked is that Rythym 0 isn't an
           | incitement for good people to do something bad; it's inciting
           | good people to leave.
           | 
           | If good people pick up the roses and bad people pick up the
           | guns, why would the good people want to stay in that
           | environment?
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | > Demonstrations of human capacity for ugliness are a lot
         | easier than revealing something beautiful.
         | 
         | This almost seems like an obvious truth but most people seem
         | oblivious to it.
         | 
         | In the general case, I like to say that "destroying is much
         | easier than creating". Sadly, for decades now, most of art (and
         | society) has been more about the former than the latter.
         | 
         | If anyone reading this has sources, essays, articles, books to
         | suggest to me that touch on this issue, I am all ears
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | I was born in '72, was a Psych major, and had never heard of
       | this. Wow.
        
       | girament wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | rendall wrote:
         | > "It may be your right (or not, I don't even know)."
         | 
         | No. This is stealing. I cannot imagine a modern legal system
         | that would not recognize it as such. "How did you acquire this
         | wallet?" "Oh, I found it in the street!" "Oh, no problem, then.
         | It's yours."
        
           | girament wrote:
           | Ok, fair enough. But again, what's legal and what people do
           | are very different things. You'd be surprised how many people
           | would just keep it.
        
             | rendall wrote:
             | I would not be surprised at all. It turns out there is
             | actual data on this:
             | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712
        
       | bowsamic wrote:
       | EDIT 2: Our overlord /u/dang has blocked my account again, which
       | he likes to do from time to time when I start writing comments
       | that he disagrees with, so I can no longer answer any more of
       | your questions. Good chat.
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | I downvoted because I disagree. Simple as that, and a totally
         | just reason to downvote. From pg himself:
         | 
         | > I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express
         | agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding
         | politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't
         | only for booing rudeness.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Your account is rate limited because you've been regularly
         | breaking the site guidelines:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37532272. This has nothing
         | to do with disagreeing. I neither agree nor disagree; I haven't
         | the slightest idea what your opinion is about anything.
         | 
         | Please don't delete-edit your comments in way that deprives
         | existing replies of their context. It's unfair to your fellow
         | users to pull the rug out from under them. You can always
         | append whatever information you want, beginning with "Edit:" or
         | something similar.
        
           | bowsamic wrote:
           | You took my rate limit off and then added it back on. The
           | person in question did need mental health support. I delete
           | edited in protest of you and your war against me
        
             | dang wrote:
             | Well yes, we take rate limits off (when there's reason to
             | believe an account will stick to the site guidelines in the
             | future) and we also put them back on (when there's reason
             | to believe they won't). It's not a war against you. It's
             | just standard moderation practice. People sometimes take it
             | personally, but that's a mistake.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | What hints? There were 72 different objects, and a person who
         | allowed spectators to become active participants, how is that
         | instigating any particular situation? People could have just
         | idly stand by, if that's what they wanted to.
        
           | bowsamic wrote:
           | If you put 72 things on the table, and some of them are
           | weapons, and you are telling a bunch of audience members that
           | they can do whatever they want and you will take full
           | responsibility for it, you are quite blatantly implying
           | violence and rape as possibilities.
           | 
           | The choice to hold the piece through the night for such a
           | long time further goads the audience.
           | 
           | Basically, she was blatantly setting up the audience for this
           | reaction. Repeat the same experiment in the middle of the day
           | for an hour without putting a gun and knife on the table and
           | you'll see a very different result.
           | 
           | EDIT: really, it's a piece of art about how it's very easy to
           | manipulate an audience
           | 
           | EDIT 2: another downvote for not liking the same piece of art
           | as you. Please grow a pair of balls.
        
             | ajuc wrote:
             | > Repeat the same experiment in the middle of the day for
             | an hour without putting a gun and knife on the table and
             | you'll see a very different result.
             | 
             | Yeah, if you change the conditions you get different
             | results.
             | 
             | > she was blatantly setting up the audience for this
             | reaction
             | 
             | I agree that the reaction was predictable. I disagree that
             | it detracts from the experiment/performance. In fact it's
             | the opposite - if the reaction is random then the
             | experiment is pointless - if the reaction is predictable -
             | the experiment tells you something about human nature.
        
               | magicalhippo wrote:
               | > the experiment tells you something about human nature
               | 
               | Hardly told us anything new tho, so trivial result as
               | such. Water is still wet.
               | 
               | Quite gutsy of her tho, I'll give her that.
        
               | actionfromafar wrote:
               | And yet, each generation and group needs to discover the
               | wetness of water.
        
               | bowsamic wrote:
               | I just don't find it that interesting that if you put
               | people into a situation that provokes people to commit
               | violence then they will do it. What does that say about
               | human nature? It's not something we are afraid of
               | admitting nor something unearthed.
        
               | stevofolife wrote:
               | I thought her real test would be that even if she put any
               | sort of weapons on the table, no one would use it/them on
               | her. That's what made the experiment/art interesting.
        
               | magicalhippo wrote:
               | > That's what made the experiment/art interesting.
               | 
               | Why? Anyone seriously harming her would have committed a
               | crime and get jailed.
               | 
               | Even if it was done via remotely operated robots via some
               | privacy-proof Tor network, so the participants could be
               | absolutely sure not to be punished for their crime, and
               | someone _did_ seriously harm her, what did it accomplish?
               | 
               | Not much, I'd say. Some people acting cruel when they can
               | get away with it is expected behavior, just look at any
               | kindergarten, not to mention the history books.
        
             | bergen wrote:
             | >another downvote for not liking the same piece of art as
             | you. Please grow a pair of balls.
             | 
             | Please grow some balls yourself and accept that not
             | everyone has to have the same opinion and use of the
             | downvote as you.
        
               | stevofolife wrote:
               | Agree. People use upvote to like or agree a comment. A
               | down vote inversely function the same way. He thinks he
               | is view so special and deserves no downvotes at all. What
               | a character.
        
             | capableweb wrote:
             | > If you put 72 things on the table, and some of them are
             | weapons, and you are telling a bunch of audience members
             | that they can do whatever they want and you will take full
             | responsibility for it, you are quite blatantly implying
             | violence and rape as possibilities.
             | 
             | That sure is one interesting way of seeing it. Another way
             | of seeing it is "Just because something is available,
             | doesn't mean you have to exploit/use it".
             | 
             | If you could, with 100% security, steal without getting
             | caught, would you?
             | 
             | > The choice to hold the piece through the night for such a
             | long time further goads the audience.
             | 
             | People have the option to say "Nah, I'm tired, lets go
             | home" instead of staying there if they're tired. But I'm
             | guessing they wanted to see how it ended, so they stuck
             | around.
             | 
             | In the end, people had options, and some people chose
             | options many would consider "less good".
        
         | hbosch wrote:
         | If we are alone in a room for 6 hours with a loaded gun, are
         | you going to point it at me? Pull the trigger?
         | 
         | The fact of the performance is that Marina Abramovic presented
         | herself and 72 objects to an audience, and did nothing more. It
         | is insanity to imply that somehow the presence of a weapon
         | alone compels someone to use the weapon, in fact that only
         | reflects one's own insanity... IMO.
        
         | ajuc wrote:
         | This is what happens in any group of people when there's
         | impunity. Things escalate till somebody stops it.
         | 
         | See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina . This happened
         | in many other countries too.
         | 
         | Or just look at bullying in schools.
         | 
         | This is how groups of people behave.
        
           | bowsamic wrote:
           | I don't think so. Bullies don't have impunity, but they carry
           | on anyway. I think it's much more to do with the suggestion
           | of violence. Leaving the blank space for violence makes it
           | huge in people's mind. They act it out against their best
           | interests, because it's so tempting. If you remove the
           | suggestion towards it at all or suggest to it and then fill
           | the urge another way, the problem disappears.
        
             | ajuc wrote:
             | If she didn't say she takes responsibility - nothing would
             | have happened.
             | 
             | After you punish the bully the first time - usually he
             | leaves you alone.
             | 
             | Impunity is the important factor, not "suggestion of
             | violence".
        
       | duckson wrote:
       | This performance art sure sounds like some sort of kink!
        
       | skeaker wrote:
       | I'm curious if this was ever repeated but not reported on because
       | the results were much tamer. After all, we wouldn't be discussing
       | this had nothing bad happened, right? If someone tried doing this
       | but the audience was idle the whole time, would we ever know it?
        
         | demondemidi wrote:
         | Name another famous work of performance art.
         | 
         | There is your answer.
         | 
         | (Although I'm assuming you didn't study any type of art in
         | college, but I did so I could blather on...)
        
       | tux3 wrote:
       | Note for the next audience members: take the initiative to unload
       | the gun.
       | 
       | No one has a very good reason to oppose you. Not that they could,
       | you have the gun.
        
         | euazOn wrote:
         | I believe the gun wasn't loaded at first, the audience was
         | given a gun and a bullet.
        
           | redog wrote:
           | Who is the one that started fighting someone with a loaded
           | gun? Well done I suppose, most people would have just watched
           | her die.
        
           | badcppdev wrote:
           | Just feed the bullet to the artist. Then it's art and 'safe'.
           | 
           | Does anyone know if ingesting and excreting a (small) bullet
           | is particularly unhealthy?
        
             | flkenosad wrote:
             | Putting it in your pocket and walking out would be a better
             | idea.
        
             | istjohn wrote:
             | Bullets are typically made of lead, so it's not ideal, but
             | I'd rather swallow a bullet than have strangers wield a
             | loaded gun in my direction.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | curtis3389 wrote:
             | Ingesting lead isn't healthy. From wikipedia: Lead is a
             | devastating and persistent neurotoxin that accumulates in
             | soft tissues and bones.
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | Presumably this was a full cartridge (strictly speaking,
             | the bullet is just the projectile; the cartridge includes
             | the case, primer, and propellant).
             | 
             | Bullets are made of primarily lead; military rounds are
             | always covered with another metal; civilian rounds may or
             | may not be. Either way I wouldn't want to swallow the
             | bullet. Then you have the primer and powder, which I also
             | wouldn't want to swallow.
        
       | phaedryx wrote:
       | Apparently, this was the last in a series:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#Career
        
       | 38 wrote:
       | this was depicted in 2011:
       | 
       | https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_On_(House)
        
         | Semaphor wrote:
         | I don't understand, nothing I see on Wikipedia mentions
         | anything resembling TFA?
        
           | i_am_jl wrote:
           | The Wikipedia article doesn't really discuss it, the
           | reference is in the episode's introduction.
           | 
           | The episode in question features not-Marina-Abramovic
           | exhibiting not-Rhythm-0. An audience member approaches the
           | table and picks up a weapon. Audience murmurs. Artist stands
           | stoically. Audience member motions like they are going to use
           | the weapon on the artist. Audience gasps. Artist's assistant
           | protests. Artist objects to protests, then promptly collapses
           | with mystery illness (House MD's writers had a thing for
           | misdirecting the audience re: who's sick in the episode
           | intros).
        
       | mpsprd wrote:
       | I remember this being "exposed" in the Tate modern in London.
       | 
       | This piece of art is the one that made me acknowledge and
       | appreciate modern art. It really makes you undestand the value of
       | context and performance.
        
       | swores wrote:
       | Related: this artist, Marina Abramovic, has just become the first
       | woman ever to have a solo exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy
       | of Arts in London, which opened two days ago.
       | 
       | I haven't been, and it's had mixed reviews (well I haven't
       | analysed the average of all reviews or anything, but I have seen
       | one extremely positive one and one fairly negative one), but I
       | thought worth mentioning as anyone interested in this
       | thread/submission might be interested in going to see her more
       | recent work.
       | 
       | https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/marina-abramovic
       | 
       | (To enter the exhibition you walk through a fairly narrow doorway
       | squeezing between a naked man and a naked woman who are standing
       | on either side in the doorway, facing each other - or you can opt
       | out and ask to be shown to the entrance that doesn't involve a
       | narrow fit and naked people. NSFW photo of that doorway with two
       | of the models used: https://d1inegp6v2yuxm.cloudfront.net/royal-
       | academy/image/up... )
        
       | denton-scratch wrote:
       | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/25/marina-...
        
       | coolThingsFirst wrote:
       | That seems like horrible "art" and the it only has shock value.
       | 
       | >When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramovic
       | began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face
       | her as a person.[9]
       | 
       | More like the audience left because they had other things to do
       | and she was more interesting as an object than as a person.
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | Do you not think it's interesting that there was "shock" at
         | all?
        
         | praptak wrote:
         | There is more than shock value though. Note that the artist
         | herself did not do anything shocking. Without the public she'd
         | just sit there for 6 hours and probably get bored.
        
         | numbsafari wrote:
         | Either interpretation, it's a profound statement about our
         | (lack of?) shared humanity.
        
         | egeozcan wrote:
         | > she was more interesting as an object than as a person
         | 
         | This as an excuse would describe the audience even more
         | horribly.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | tgv wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | nabla9 wrote:
         | _" Art is anything you can get away with"_ - Marshall McLuhan
         | 
         | Many people take the saying as negative, but McLuhan said it
         | from deep respect for art. Art is cultural product and 'getting
         | away with' is cultural process related to the audience.
         | 
         | Horror in this case is how art presents realities of humanity.
         | 
         | ps. Andy Warhol quoted McLuhan and made the saying famous, but
         | did not originate the quote.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | > That seems like horrible "art" and the it only has shock
         | value.
         | 
         | It could have been nothing, if none of the audience would have
         | dared to touch her. But then the audience did make it into
         | "shock value" by treating her the way they treated her.
         | 
         | They didn't have to, but seems people naturally gravitated that
         | way.
        
           | coolThingsFirst wrote:
           | Right, are you sure it was unscripted?
           | 
           | I'm just saying I'd be totally aware it's an art exhibit and
           | not do anything stupid because of potential hidden cameras.
           | 
           | Seems the "result" of the experiment is conveniently implying
           | that humans by nature are evil which is just not true.
        
             | cats_ wrote:
             | How are you so sure humans aren't evil by nature?
        
               | flkenosad wrote:
               | Because children are pure. It's not until the environment
               | damages them, that people become evil.
        
               | praptak wrote:
               | This does not explain the existence of evil.
        
             | cal85 wrote:
             | Even if it isn't 'scripted', there's an implied script in
             | the objects laid on the table and the general presentation
             | as a piece of interactive art where the audience is
             | requested to participate by doing 'anything' to her and she
             | won't react. They were being asked, implicitly, to break
             | norms, to treat her as non-human, to get all weird in the
             | name of Art.
             | 
             | The idea that this says something profound about how people
             | will 'naturally gravitate' towards violent or dehumanising
             | behaviour is ridiculous.
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | > where the audience is requested to participate by doing
               | 'anything' to her and she won't react
               | 
               | Just to be 100% clear, she never asked people to "do
               | anything" nor "I won't react", this is what was said to
               | the audience/participants:
               | 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.              Duration: 6 hours (8 pm - 2
               | am).[6]
        
               | cal85 wrote:
               | Those instructions strongly imply "do anything". As for
               | "I won't react", that's obvious from the first moment
               | someone does something to her (like moving her arms) and
               | she just goes along with it. From then on, it becomes
               | obbvious that it's a game, a kind of endurance test for
               | the artist, with the audience trying increasingly extreme
               | things to see if she really will keep going along with
               | it.
               | 
               | (And of course, at any moment she could just say "OK
               | that's enough, I'm stopping this early, please stop" and
               | it would be over - it's not like everyone would say "Nah,
               | we are going to keep abusing you until 2am as originally
               | agreed".)
        
             | capableweb wrote:
             | Unless there is some proof otherwise, I'm gonna assume it
             | was genuine performance art.
             | 
             | Taking what the author says at face value, the goal was
             | "See what the public would do to a human if given tools and
             | unrestricted access/allowance for 6 hours", and the
             | conclusion is up to the audience and future
             | viewers/readers, rather than the author trying to steer
             | people into some predefined conclusion.
             | 
             | One way you could see it is "all humans are inherently
             | evil" but that's not the way I see it, as the audience
             | seems to eventually be split up in one "nice" group trying
             | to stop the "not nice" group from acting out.
        
               | coolThingsFirst wrote:
               | How would you convince someone that they had unrestricted
               | access to a human being to do whatever they pleased with
               | though?
               | 
               | Seems almost impossible.
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | Read the linked article and maybe watch
               | https://vimeo.com/71952791 so you know what actually
               | happened in the event.
               | 
               | In this case, you write a note and let people do
               | whatever. Once you see someone that cutting their skin is
               | OK, I'm pretty sure you'd feel OK with whatever you had
               | in mind.
        
             | dfee wrote:
             | You wouldn't do anything stupid (evil) because of potential
             | hidden cameras (albeit, this was 1974), but also you reject
             | that humans by nature are evil.
             | 
             | I'm not sure how you've arrived at your conclusion,
             | irregardless of my feelings about the innate evilness of
             | humanity.
        
               | coolThingsFirst wrote:
               | >I'm not sure how you've arrived at your conclusion,
               | irregardless of my feelings about the innate evilness of
               | humanity.
               | 
               | You go to bed in safety wake up in safety you are highly
               | unlikely to be randomly harmed.
               | 
               | What's more likely that humans aren't innately evil or
               | that they are acting nice because of laws and
               | repercussions?
        
               | jstanley wrote:
               | But you just said that the reason you were acting nice is
               | because of the potential cameras.
        
               | coolThingsFirst wrote:
               | By stupid I obviously meant something embarassing like
               | touching her in inappropriate places.
        
               | dfee wrote:
               | You're not helping yourself (or your argument) here.
        
               | coolThingsFirst wrote:
               | Literally no one cares what you think
        
       | bhickey wrote:
       | Reminds me of Steven Millhauser's story _The Knife Thrower_. The
       | titular knife thrower deliberately scars his assistant and
       | audience members before pushing the act to the extreme to satiate
       | the demands of the crowd.
        
       | philshem wrote:
       | It resembles the less extreme "Cut Piece" from Yoko Ono (1964)
       | 
       | https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yoko-ono-cut-piece-...
        
       | guerrilla wrote:
       | Yeah, never give people you don't trust power over you if you can
       | avoid it. Some of them will be kind to you, but that's not
       | enough.
        
         | epolanski wrote:
         | Her art, whatever you think about it as an art or performance,
         | is about exploring the relationship between the performance and
         | the audience. In her case, it's also body art and endurance
         | performing.
         | 
         | I find that act a terrific example of her work.
        
           | maroonblazer wrote:
           | I saw it as a commentary on how society treats the weak or
           | less powerful. Some, but importantly not all, of us will
           | exercise our power and will over other people, given the
           | opportunity. The motivations for why some might choose to
           | assert dominance over someone with less power could be
           | interesting territory to explore in this piece, or perhaps a
           | different one.
        
       | brap wrote:
       | Imagine how much worse this could have been, if the audience
       | members were somehow completely anonymized
       | 
       | Edit: this is not some hot take on anonymity on the web
        
       | samaysharma wrote:
       | If you prefer watching a video, this is Marina talking about
       | performing Rhythm 0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTBkbseXfOQ
        
       | trainyperson wrote:
       | I first learned about this piece in a college art class. Reading
       | about it again, I'm intrigued by how much of the surrounding
       | discourse (including the artist's own comments) talks about
       | "audience" and "public" and "humanity" in the abstract.
       | 
       | It seems to me that the outcome would have been heavily dependent
       | on _who specifically_ was in the room. In that way, the piece
       | speaks more to the psyche of _an_ audience and _a_ public, rather
       | than _the_.
       | 
       | I'm also curious what people think of the name?
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | I think that's because usually, once people are in a group
         | setting, we all kind of blend in together, acting as a group
         | more than as individuals. Sure, there are always individuals
         | that never conform to any groups, and they'll stick out, but
         | most of the common human will start acting as a "person" rather
         | than "John" when joining a group in a public setting.
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | It's still valid to argue that this was _an_ audience, rather
           | than something generalizable to humankind. Conformity looks
           | very different depending on context: if this piece were being
           | performed in an Amish community it would look very different
           | than it did, not because of less group conformity (there
           | would likely be stronger conformity) but because of
           | conformity to _different_ norms.
        
             | AlecSchueler wrote:
             | It's a piece though. It hasn't been performed multiple
             | times because of the safety issue, but at its core the idea
             | is that you could repeat it for arbitrary audiences.
             | 
             | Yes, in practice the performance history can only shed a
             | little light on the nature of audience, but the piece is
             | conceptually capable of broader insight.
        
               | lolinder wrote:
               | > but at its core the idea is that you could repeat it
               | for arbitrary audiences.
               | 
               | That's the idea, but I don't see any strong reason to
               | believe it. There are too many unknowns for me right now.
               | 
               | We do not know how the event was marketed. Who was
               | invited? What were they told in advance? Presumably this
               | wasn't a random sample, it was a self-selected group of
               | people, and how the event was presented would determine
               | the type of people who showed up.
               | 
               | Here's what I _do_ know: It was scheduled for 6 hours
               | from 8pm-2am on a Wednesday, and she had previously
               | engaged in some very violent performance art
               | [0][1][2][3]. That suggests that the audience is self-
               | selected away from people who have jobs or families, and
               | that the audience was primed to _expect_ that she wanted
               | a violent performance. Another commenter indicated that
               | the audience egged each other on _in the name of the
               | performance_.
               | 
               | This does not suggest to me an event that could be
               | recreated with an arbitrary audience by an arbitrary
               | performer.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#R
               | hythm_1...
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#R
               | hythm_5...
               | 
               | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#R
               | hythm_2...
               | 
               | [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87#R
               | hythm_4...
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | > This does not suggest to me an event that could be
               | recreated with an arbitrary audience by an arbitrary
               | performer.
               | 
               | Could you explain why not? What's stopping me from
               | putting on a preformance if this in my project space next
               | week? (other than intellectual property concerns)
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | Joeboy wrote:
               | Shia Labeouf did something similar called IAMSORRY,
               | although I'm not sure _how_ similar. Suspect there was no
               | loaded gun provided.
               | 
               | Apparently a woman sexually assaulted him and was removed
               | by gallery staff.
        
               | wizofaus wrote:
               | I wonder if it mightn't be tried again at some point
               | using a realistic "artificial human"/android.
        
         | junon wrote:
         | Prefacing with that I love this piece and have always found it
         | fascinating.
         | 
         | This has always been my main criticism. As art, it's lovely -
         | horrifying, but fascinating.
         | 
         | As a critique of humanity, it doesn't sit well with me to
         | assert _anything_ in a general way based on the behavior of the
         | audience. I don 't see humanity so bleakly as to assume this
         | would happen in every case with any group of people.
        
           | SenAnder wrote:
           | At most this shows what "performance art" enthusiasts are
           | like. I wager they're not representative of humanity as a
           | whole.
        
         | AlecSchueler wrote:
         | I find it interesting as well that many here seem to miss one
         | of the main aspects of the piece: the violence of men against
         | women. It's not just "an audience" but a very divided audience.
         | 
         | When you watch it back it's predominantly men who grope her
         | body, harass her and laugh despite her visible tears.
         | 
         | I've seen this piece discussed in various places. Sometimes the
         | gendered and sexual element of the violence against the artist
         | is the main thing that is touched upon. In other contexts the
         | women of the audience are actually backgrounded so completely
         | that the reaction of the men is spoken about as if it's the
         | entire audience.
         | 
         | The Guardian had an article today which touched on this for the
         | anniversary:
         | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/25/marina-...
        
           | AnthonyMouse wrote:
           | Has anyone attempted to replicate the performance with a man
           | as the target?
        
             | ghodith wrote:
             | Didn't Shia Labeouf do a similar performance art piece and
             | claim to have been raped by a woman during it?
        
               | Joeboy wrote:
               | Yes, it was called #IAMSORRY.
        
           | girament wrote:
           | > the violence of men against women.
           | 
           | Why bring gender into this? Why assume without any other
           | indication that this would have been different had the artist
           | been a man? Or if the audience would have been only women?
        
             | AlecSchueler wrote:
             | I'd say there's a few reasons. First: the very visible
             | recorded gender disparity in the audience reaction within
             | the performance itself. Further: the statistical facts of
             | gender based violence. The reaction in the case of this
             | performance mirrors the reality outside the performance
             | hall, where women almost inevitably face various level of
             | gender based violence throughout their lives.
             | 
             | Lastly I'd also say because I believe (although I could be
             | wrong) the gender divide of HN is unbalanced towards men
             | like myself, so it can be helpful to raise these issues at
             | times where our blindspots might lead us to miss
             | interesting or important elements of the stories shared. In
             | cases where that blindness helps real world violence to
             | thrive I feel it's doubly important that we can discuss it
             | without getting defensive.
             | 
             | > Why assume without any other indication that this would
             | have been different had the artist been a man?
             | 
             | Without any other indicator? Like I say, we have huge
             | indicators in the statistical makeup of violence outside of
             | the performance hall. Women are far more likely to
             | experience sexual violence. Indeed, the likelihood of
             | Marina experiencing sexual assault at work would have
             | already been non-negligible even if she wasn't inviting
             | interaction.
             | 
             | > Or if the audience would have been only women?
             | 
             | Please note: the audience in reality wasn't "only men." it
             | was a basically even mix, but the violence of the reactions
             | was far from balanced.
        
               | girament wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | > This art piece held a mirror to all of societey though,
               | not just the men.
               | 
               | The irony here is that you're continuing to focus only on
               | the men despite what I read. I say that there's a huge
               | gender disparity in the sexual violence that was
               | committed against the artist. Somehow you've read that as
               | me saying the work is a mirror of the violence men commit
               | against women? But it's equally a mirror of the women who
               | chose not to commit violence against her. Shadow or
               | light, a mirror reflects it all.
               | 
               | > Was that act sexualized violence?
               | 
               | What is this argument? You're taking one example that you
               | can question the sexual nature of while ignoring the
               | multiple cases of literal sexual assault.
               | 
               | Can I ask you a hypothetical question?
               | 
               | Let's say it was a male artist and the audience was
               | 50/50. Now say that almost 100% of the violence against
               | that man was committed by women and that much of it had a
               | degrading sexual nature, and that these women all laughed
               | amongst their friends while the man they groped and
               | stripped was reduced to tears, before one of these women
               | eventually held a gun to his head.
               | 
               | Would that gender disparity stand out as worth mentioning
               | to you?
        
             | EatingWithForks wrote:
             | I think you're missing the point of an art, especially art
             | where the audience participates. Art is meant to invoke
             | societal concepts, like gender. It makes sense to bring
             | gender into a context such as an art piece where the
             | audience are active participants.
        
               | girament wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | Who said anything about a war between genders? Can't we
               | talk about real issues raised by art without it being
               | framed as a culture war? I'm a man and I don't feel in
               | any way attacked by this discussion existing.
               | 
               | If the artist was a black man and the audience was 50/50
               | black and white but all of the violence committed against
               | him was by white people, often was explicitly race based
               | overtones, would you not find that notable?
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | rcoveson wrote:
         | Attempting to extract a conclusion about human nature from this
         | event is as ridiculous as trying to determine if hypnosis is
         | real based on the outcomes at a hypnosis performance.
         | 
         | The people were not randomly selected. We are not told what
         | their instructions were. We do not know what their
         | relationships were with the creator/subject of the piece. None
         | of that is a "problem" with the piece, of course, because it
         | _doesn 't even purport to be science_. It's not "performance
         | art" in the sarcastic sense that you might apply to a very
         | poorly designed social science experiment. It's _actually_
         | performance art. It tells us as much about humanity as an indie
         | film depicting the same occurrences would.
        
           | EatingWithForks wrote:
           | I think art does capture a perspective of humanity in a way
           | that science does not. In a sense, you can argue science is a
           | kind of art, also, with its own perspective of humanity--
           | notions of conclusions drawn only from observable phenomena
           | isolated from interference/the world can somehow apply to a
           | world full of interference and knock-off unforseen
           | consequences.
           | 
           | I don't know how you can scientifically glean any conclusion
           | that the artist was trying to discover or perspect, here, as
           | effectively as she is trying to do so.
        
             | rcoveson wrote:
             | I wasn't trying to say art has no value, just that its
             | value isn't in it being a source of conclusions. Art can
             | raise questions that we wouldn't have had otherwise, and
             | questions are the starting point of science (and that of
             | further art).
             | 
             | > I don't know how you can scientifically glean any
             | conclusion that the artist was trying to discover or
             | perspect, here, as effectively as she is trying to do so.
             | 
             | This is what I disagree with. If there is a conclusion that
             | you think you have drawn from this work, then you should
             | re-frame it as a hypothesis and test it properly. Or just
             | be content with the new questions, perspectives, and the
             | experience of it. Just don't go saying that you learned
             | something reliably predictive about how humans behave.
        
               | EatingWithForks wrote:
               | How do I test it properly in science, except through what
               | she did here? Genuinely asking. Am I paying people 10$
               | amazon gift cards for the opportunity to sexually assault
               | a woman? VR-cut-and-drink-woman-blood?
        
               | ghodith wrote:
               | Even if you can't ethically test it scientifically, that
               | doesn't mean the alternative is to take conclusions from
               | it instead. You have to recognize it's limitations for
               | what they are.
        
         | badcppdev wrote:
         | I was coming to write a similar comment. It's a pity that the
         | article doesn't talk more about the audience.
         | 
         | To answer your question the name is suitably cryptic and can be
         | interpreted as referring to the artist not moving. It kind of
         | pales compared to the my thoughts about the actual 6 hour
         | performance which truthfully leaves me feeling a bit nauseous
         | and disturbed
        
         | brookst wrote:
         | I'm not sure different people would produce a different
         | outcome. Maybe?
         | 
         | But if you think of it as a statistical mixture problem, there
         | is some sample size where the same aggregate personality
         | emerges in the crowd, much like we expect any given sample of
         | air to have the same characteristics.
         | 
         | So many it's a question of whether the sample size was large
         | enough to represent the overall population? ("Population" might
         | just be "those who go to this kind of thing" and not all
         | humanity)
        
           | vlunkr wrote:
           | > "Population" might just be "those who go to this kind of
           | thing" and not all humanity
           | 
           | Yeah this is the key. The audience is a group of people
           | interested in performance art. They didn't show up for a 6
           | event where nothing happens.
        
           | orbital-decay wrote:
           | At any scale, especially at the scale where the aggregate
           | personality is going to become visible, the collective
           | behavior will dominate the individual behavior. You won't be
           | able to separate the two unless you modify the experiment to
           | include another part with meaningfully isolated individuals.
        
         | ImHereToVote wrote:
         | I lot of society's ills are blamed on the common man. Never the
         | elite.
        
           | UncleOxidant wrote:
           | The elite are just common men with money & power, no?
        
             | lacrimacida wrote:
             | They are but they don't think of themselves as common
             | people except for the very aware few.
        
         | itslennysfault wrote:
         | I feel like this type of language is standard for artists (and
         | startup founders oddly enough). By that I mean they tend to
         | over inflate their scope/impact. This product is going to
         | change the WORLD!! My art is having a huge impact on SOCIETY!!
         | 
         | I think your assessment is correct, but that type of
         | broad/overblown language is not uncommon at all.
        
           | AlecSchueler wrote:
           | Having written some of these statements I want to point out
           | this is done because of the impact requirements of funding
           | programmes.
        
             | BeFlatXIII wrote:
             | ...and the public has taken the lesson of "the longer the
             | artist statement, the worse the art"
        
               | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
               | I don't think the public puts a lot of stock into artist
               | statements one way or the other. "Good" art can have eye-
               | rollingly self-important artist statements on the placard
               | just like "bad" art. We all know it's just a part of the
               | game the industry plays.
        
         | forth_fool wrote:
         | Given that this performance has taken place in a large, western
         | city with a random audience, what makes anyone think that the
         | outcome would be significantly different if you would perform
         | it multiple times, in similar contexts, assuming the audience
         | has no knowledge of the other instances?
         | 
         | The pattern seems clear to me: you have a situation in which
         | you are "allowed", even encouraged, to do harm to a person. You
         | are "hidden" in a crowd. The crowd starts off with harmless
         | actions but the get more intense over time, the boundary is
         | pushed continuously. As long as you can hide in the crowd, you
         | cheer. But as soon as you have to answer as an individual, you
         | turn into a coward.
         | 
         | Of course you might think of specific contexts, in which the
         | outcome would be different. But in a general setting? Why
         | should this be the case?
         | 
         | The performance took place in 1974, barely 30 years after the
         | fall of the Nazi regime. Under this regime, a whole people was
         | put in a similar situation, where the treatment and
         | dehumanization (i.e. objectification) of specific groups (in
         | particular, Jews) got worse over time, publicly and
         | continuously. I think in this historical context, the
         | performance clearly referred to that time. I don't remember the
         | 1970's, but in the 80's and still in the 90's, WW2 and the
         | Third Reich were very much present in the public mind and often
         | referred to in conversation. One example is Todd Strasser's
         | novel The Wave from 1981, which shows how an "innocent"
         | audience is transformed into an aggressive mob. I remember that
         | this novel, and the movies based upon it, led to discussions
         | where some people claimed "this certainly wouldn't happen
         | here/to us/to me/now".
         | 
         | I think it needs a good explanation why today, or a different
         | crowd, would be any different.
        
           | SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
           | Not a random audience. An audience of the sort of people who
           | go to six hour performance art shows.
        
         | lolinder wrote:
         | Given the date, I suspect it was influenced by the Stanford
         | Prison Experiment, which was just three years prior. We now
         | know that Stanford Prison was _not_ an experiment at all [0],
         | but at the time I imagine it was fresh on everyone 's minds and
         | believed uncritically.
         | 
         | The proximity to Stanford Prison, coupled with the time
         | (8pm-2am) and her wording ("There are 72 objects on the table
         | that one can use on me as desired. Performance. I am the
         | object.") go a long way towards explaining what happened here.
         | Not that the behavior is acceptable or justified, but that it
         | certainly should not be used to come to any bleak conclusions
         | about humans in general.
         | 
         | EDIT: Also, it's important to note that she had in the prior
         | year performed four different pieces that left her wounded or
         | unconscious. We don't know what they were told in advance, but
         | the audience was almost certainly aware of her MO when they
         | showed up and expecting something intense. That would both have
         | an impact on the kind of person who chose to be there _and_ on
         | their behavior once present.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-
         | exper...
        
           | Joeboy wrote:
           | There was a vogue for stuff about man's innate inhumanity
           | around this time. Stanford Prison Experiment, Milgram
           | Experiement, Cut Piece, Rhythm 0, Sex Raft Experiment etc.
        
             | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
             | Don't forget The Third Wave (1967):
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
        
             | bjourne wrote:
             | Milgram's experiments were ten years prior. And the
             | interpretation of the experiments' results, that Milgram
             | himself favored, was not about man's innate inhumanity, but
             | about man's ability to perform inhumane acts _if ordered by
             | an authority_. He emphasized that none of the subjects
             | would willingly shock  "the learner" unless _ordered_ to.
        
           | js2 wrote:
           | Indeed, for a more optimistic take on humans, see this recent
           | piece by Zeynep Tufekci:
           | 
           | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/opinion/columnists/burnin.
           | ..
        
         | Joeboy wrote:
         | I'm afraid this is very much an "a man in a pub told me"
         | anecdote, but a while ago I chatted with somebody who
         | apparently interviewed people who attended the original Rhythm
         | 0. She said that initially people were reluctant to behave in
         | the violent ways expected, and Abromovic's assistants were
         | telling people they were spoiling the art by being too timid.
         | None of the online write-ups mention this so idk, but it would
         | make a lot of sense. The piece would've been a damp squib if (a
         | few of) the audience hadn't behaved as they did.
         | 
         | Either way, perhaps it makes sense to think of the audience
         | reaction as artistic collaboration, rather than innate human
         | visciousness.
        
           | cameldrv wrote:
           | Similar story, I used to know an artist who knew her
           | casually. He said that she was intensely aware of the
           | commercial aspect of her work and is basically the art
           | equivalent of a shock jock. She gets a lot of attention and
           | makes a lot of money from doing the most outrageous things
           | she can think of.
        
           | rendall wrote:
           | This is really an important piece of information to
           | understand the original art! The interpretation is vastly
           | different because of this!
           | 
           | It reminds me of a story I heard about John Cage's _Music of
           | Changes_ , which was famously composed randomly. John Cage
           | purportedly threw coins and consulted the I Ching to
           | determine each subsequent note. However, during a memorial at
           | John Cage's death, David Tudor told a story about how he saw
           | John Cage just writing down the notes and not throwing coins.
           | When he asked for an explanation, John Cage said the he did
           | not have to throw coins "because my mind is random."
        
             | WhitneyLand wrote:
             | Yes! If true it reminds me of Hasan Minjaj.
             | 
             | https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hasan-minhajs-
             | fab...
        
             | jancsika wrote:
             | > When he asked for an explanation, John Cage said the he
             | did not have to throw coins "because my mind is random."
             | 
             | Was Cage claiming some kind of spiritual musical connection
             | from choosing pitches based on the I Ching? If not, then it
             | was just a practical compositional consideration. He didn't
             | need cryptographically secure sequences, and-- at least in
             | terms of music cognition-- at worst he ended up repeating
             | consecutive pitches fewer times than he should have. (And
             | if he _started_ with I Ching-derived patterns he may have
             | noticed the repetitions and successfully emulated them with
             | his mind!)
             | 
             | After all, his general need for random processes was to
             | avoid accidentally falling back into patterns from the
             | common practice period of tonal music (esp. patterns from
             | the Romantic era). In other words, his mind was basically
             | good enough for the avant garde. :)
        
       | slowhadoken wrote:
       | Seems to say more about the artist than the audience.
        
         | lcfcjs wrote:
         | [dead]
        
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