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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 (8pm–2am.) Studio Morra, Naples
The stuff they did boggles my mind such as cutting her with thorns, sexual assault. I don’t understand do they think because it’s “art” it isn’t a fucked up thing to do to a person?
I wonder if it’s supposed to be part of the “art” - to show how depraved humans can be given a chance to do it scot-free.
Bro. Artists can be very edgy. Sculptures of naked people, paintings of people fucking, I bet there is some piece made out of rubber vaginas somewhere.
I don’t justify what people did to her, but you bet she knew what it was going to happen, even the thorn part. Otherwise, she would have stopped with the performance right there and there.
Edit: she even made a gun and a bullet available to the public!! I’d rather think it was a blank, but if it wasn’t, then yeah…
Edit 2: Ok, I take it back! People are fucked up indeed: “When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramović began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person.”
I agree she was prepared for it and expected it but still fucked. She didn’t tell them to be cruel…she just said they were allowed to. Reminds me of the Stanford prison experiment where you kind of give people a tacit permission to be evil…so they do and then we are confronted with the aftermath. I just can’t imagine I could cause someone’s skin to bleed purposefully and not feel awful…
Not the same but related…this guy was shot as an art piece
The Stanford prison experiment couldn’t be replicated and the data are widely considered useless in psychologist community. Basically someone wanted to be famous so they created a shocking but fake study.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham and couldn’t be replicated.
This Art project still seems gruesome…
No shit she knew what they were going to do. That was the point. She was making a point about how inhumane people become when they think there are no consequences for their actions.
Even if the gun was loaded with a blank, at any distance where she can be the one holding it (assuming it’s aimed at her) a blank would still do serious damage. When a blank is fired, solid propellant typically is ejected as well as ignited propellant and metal shavings. Too close and a blank is almost like birdshot.
You’re assuming a full-strength blank, like they use in Hollywood. It could be a round with little/no powder. That would show if someone fired, but would not actually be capable of harm.
so I realize this is probably a controversial take, but is it really sexual assault in this case. She did consent to „everything“ basically
Ya, some things come to mind I’d normally call victim blaming but she basically invited people to fuck with her. If being assaulted in multiple ways didn’t cross her mind she was living in a fantasy world. Groups of people are terrible, the larger the group the more terrible they are. One person will push a boundary and then another will take it further, so on and so forth until it’s just… Mob mentality is a real thing and it’s not when you see the best of humanity.
The point of this art is to show what humans become when they reduce a fellow person to an object.
Every person that harmed her in any way is fundamentally a bad person, but also shares a quality with all of us in that we can all choose to become that person at any time.
The goal of art like this is to get people to reflect upon these innate mentalities, not hopeful denial of their existence.
She did not explicitly state that she was OK with being touched sexually. Nor did she say she was OK being cut. She said anything goes but I believe monkey paw rules of language apply here. I would argue that the whole point here is that different people take the “permission” to different levels. I personally would never do anything to someone that I would not want done to myself unless and perhaps not even if they gave explicit permission. Here only implicit permission is given and the audience decided how far it went. Your point might have stood if there was some explicitly stated agreement that asexual acts are ok, but frankly I believe it is clear here that it does count as a violation at minimum.
I dunno. I admire the idealism in your attitude here, but realistically we have to look at the words she herself used: “Instructions: There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. Performance: I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.”
It strikes me that this quite explicitly states that there are no limits. I’m honestly somewhat surprised that she wasn’t more seriously assaulted.
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree. She didn’t set any limits and told them to do what they wanted to her. Amazing it wasn’t worse in the end.
I agree but only in the most cold technical sense. That isn’t what consent is supposed to look like though. If someone verbally consents but looks uncomfortable you should have the slightest shred of empathy to check in on them or wonder if they feel pressured to consent for whatever reason.
She didn’t mean that shit literally. She didn’t actually give them permission to do anything – language doesn’t work like that.
I think legal semantics might just be beside the point. I believe she knew the possibility was there and accepted it, but the answer she was looking for is “how far does it go” when a person essentially publicly forfeits their rights. Blanket consent, the forfeiture of those rights, they don’t fundamentally change that this is a person.
They are doing it because they can.
It probably means that they would do that to anyone is they know there will be no repercussions. Like someone who is passed out drunk or a child.
I agree. I guess I understand the argument that if someone says “hey I’m going to come up here and I want everyone to hurt me, physically and sexually” then people do…it isn’t wrong. But I just can’t stomach it. Maybe I’m a prude. I guess it’s legal for consenting adults. And I guess it should be legal…
It IS wrong. That’s the whole point. Good people don’t just harm innocents simply because there’s an opportunity to do it without consequences. Even with consent that shit is still fucked up. The good people understood that which is why someone took the gun away and why that poor woman is still alive.
I can’t believe how there wasn’t a single person in the audience who tried to stop anyone. Other than the person who took the gun away from her head. Still. No one stopped the people trying to injure or assault her. No one called anyone out? It’s sickening.
I can’t believe how there wasn’t a single person in the audience who tried to stop anyone
Yeah, that’s not what’s written in the Wikipedia article.
Faced with her abdication of will, with its implied collapse of human psychology, a protective group began to define itself in the audience. When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina’s head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions.
It may be sickening, but it is what any human being would do, given the right circumstances. To be human is to be susceptible to do this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
but it is what any human being would do, given the right circumstances.
Bullshit. The experiment you linked isn’t even close to what this is:
They measured the willingness of study participants, 40 men in the age range of 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a “learner”.
The people who violate the performer aren’t instructed, in any way, by an authority figure, and the act isn’t conflicting with their personal believe. They are psychopath.
You should probably read the link you posted, because the results of the milgram experiment as touted by media is not really representative of what happened.
This is more bystander effect than submission to authority.
