One night in 1974, at the Arts Festival in Naples, Italy, a young woman, covered in scars and tears, sat naked in the middle of the crowd.
The woman, Marina Abramovich, is a Yugoslav performance artist who, for the past 6 hours, has performed a performance art called Rhythm 0 at the Art Museum.
In this performance, Marina suffers inhuman treatment, she is injected with anesthetics and then abused by strangers with various "weapons".
Some people cut her hair and intimate clothes with scissors, some people used daggers to scar her body, and some even took a loaded pistol and pointed it at her head.
And Marina, because of the anesthesia, faced with the surging malice, can only "accept it calmly!" ”
So, what is her reason for doing this, and what does she want to prove through these actions? What is the story of this performance artist?
(Marina Abramovich)
The answers to these questions require us to step into Marina herself and the mysterious activity of performance art.
Marina, who is passionate about performance art
Shakespeare once said, "A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets," so everyone's perception of art is also very different.
But most people have respect for traditional arts, such as painting, music, literature and so on.
Some people think that Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is his pursuit of art, and some people think that Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" is his understanding of art.
In this pursuit of art, there are some people who can even sacrifice themselves in order to pursue the art in their hearts, and this form of artistic expression is often called performance art.
Unlike paintings, literary works, and music, one of the biggest differences between performance art and traditional art as we usually understand it is that the audience has a real sense of participation.
In order to find the artistic truth in their hearts, performance artists often take more intense behaviors with physical or mental limits to express their views, such as masochism, killing, nakedness, etc., and they are eager to rethink the original artistic concepts and the relationship between man and nature through these behaviors.
However, often because of the fierce thinking, performance artists often show a strong contrast with traditional art, which is easy to cause people to resent and discomfort.
(Performance Art)
Marina Abramovich is a performance artist immersed in this concept of art, and in the pursuit of art, she has made countless great sacrifices and willingly dedicated herself to performance art.
In the creation of art, Marina advocates the release of primitive human instincts, so creating with her body has become the best way for her to release her nature.
To know that a performance artist like her choosing to create with her body is not only a challenge to her personal body and mind, but also requires a lot of courage.
(Marina's Performance)
Especially in the process of some special performances, various dangerous situations may occur, and there may be a risk of dedication to art if you are not careful.
Create an experiment of "human temptations"
When embarking on the path of performance art, Marina tried differently, but what made her famous was the performance about "testing human nature" that she planned in 1974.
Marina had just turned 23 that year, and in her perception, human nature should be good, and in order to confirm her conjecture, Marina decided to make a bold attempt to design a performance with the core to show "human nature".
In order to achieve the desired result, Marina made a lot of preparation for this performance. The first is the props for the performance, which are as numerous as 72.
(Performance Props)
Among them, there are cakes, flowers, fruits, which will not cause much harm to the human body; But items like leather whips, knives, sharp tools, etc., it is really difficult not to think of bloody pictures; What's more, there was a pistol in the prop.
And these props are all open to the audience without exception, and it is clear that Marina herself is the most critical prop in this performance.
The purpose of this performance is very clear, that is, to see what kind of behavior people will perform on Marina without any constraints, using props prepared in advance.
(Audience in the performance)
In order to completely free up the humanity of all the audiences involved in the experiment, Marina signed an exemption agreement with them before the performance began.
The content of the agreement is mainly to illustrate that in the course of this performance, because the various acts carried out by the audience on her have led to the occurrence of accidents, the audience does not have to bear any responsibility.
So, in what state did Marina participate in this experiment?
According to the original design, the show lasted from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next day, for a total of six hours.
In the process, Marina anesthetizes herself to a state where her body cannot move but her brain is conscious, and the decisions about her body's disposal are firmly in the hands of the audience.
(Marina being anesthetized in the experiment)
So during the hours-long performance, even if someone did something unfriendly to Marina, Marina could do nothing but watch, and these people were not responsible.
The name of the performance is "Rhythm 0". At that time, this performance was too avant-garde, and Marina might die if she was not careful, but it was also because of this performance that posterity called it the "mother of performance art".
From restraint to all kinds of bold behavior
At 8:00 p.m., the performance officially began, and the 23-year-old beautiful girl Marina stood there motionless like a delicate and beautiful "toy doll", after being anesthetized.
The audience participating in the performance is randomly selected, both men and women, who can apply pre-prepared props to "please" or "torture" Marina according to their personal preferences.
(Marina with flowers in her hand)
Since most of the audience involved did not know much about this form of performance, many even suspected that she was doing a show to win the public's attention.
At first, everyone just looked around Marina and looked around, and a few people would step forward and gently touch her body.
Slowly some people tried to pick up a glass of water for her to drink, some people planned to feed her a piece of cake, and some people picked up a bouquet of flowers and put it on her hand, but there was no excessive behavior.
(Acts of kindness from the audience)
It is conceivable that the audience behaves this way because they are not sure if Marina is really anesthetized and unable to make any resistance, so the behavior is gentle and full of kindness.
But as time went on, some people began to mischievously apply lipstick to her face, or pour a glass of water directly from the top of her head, and after these malicious acts, people found Marina still standing there, motionless...
(Malicious act of the audience pouring water)
The emergence of this situation began to make many people want to move, and gradually entered the midnight, and sure enough, the malicious behavior of some viewers began to escalate.
People began to pick up the items on the table and "torture" Marina unscrupulously, such as cutting her clothes with scissors, stabbing her body with thorns on roses, and some people even took knives to cut her skin, and these acts suddenly aroused the "enthusiasm" in people's hearts.
In order to vent the "animal nature" in their hearts, some people even began to punch and kick Marina's body, and the intensity gradually increased visibly. If it weren't for the effect of the anesthetic, Marina's body would never have been able to withstand this pain.
(During the performance, the audience tries to bind Marina)
At the end of the performance, there was even an uncontrollable situation, and one person actually picked up the loaded gun, walked up to Marina and aimed it at her. At this time, the staff was worried about an accident and rushed forward to stop it, so as not to let the tragedy happen.
The test of human nature is a painful realization
During the performance, Marina, who remained conscious, was at the mercy of others, although the anesthesia made her body unconscious and could not feel pain, but the various actions of the audience deeply stung her heart.
In the face of people's unscrupulous behavior, Marina can only express her true feelings with frightened eyes and tears in her eyes.
(Tearful Marina)
Although some people in the audience felt that some of the behaviors made by everyone were really inappropriate, no one really stood up to stop them.
Even the vast majority of the audience looked at Marina's confused appearance and smiled happily, as if at that moment, the dark side of human nature was completely exposed.
After the performance, Marina's body gradually woke up from the anesthesia and regained the ability to move. At that time, she did not say a word, her eyes were empty, and she dragged her scarred body slowly towards the audience.
The audience was terrified, and as Marina approached step by step, they kept retreating, and some even fled the scene directly, fearing that Marina would retaliate against them.
The next day, some viewers chose to apologize to Marina because they didn't know why they had acted so incomprehensibly.
At the end of the performance, when the crowd had dispersed, Marina sat quietly in the corner alone, without saying a word, until a tear fell from the corner of her eye.
As a performance artist, the experiment was designed by Marina herself, and she never wanted to take revenge on those who abused her, and all the results of the experiment were borne by her alone.
(Audience taking photos during the show)
The reason why she shed tears was because the results of this experiment were not expected by her, and even more so she did not want to see.
Many people find performance performances bohemian and challenging for artists. Afterwards, Marina was particularly sad and depressed, and she said that through this performance, she deeply understood a truth, that is, when a person puts the decision in the hands of others, then they may choose to kill you.
It can be seen here that when the evil of human nature is not bound by any conditions, it will be like a flood that breaks the embankment, instantly drowning all human reason.
(Marina, scarred at the end of the show)
This performance performance is not so much an unprecedented work of art as a large-scale social experiment, a thrilling psychological experiment.
5. Artistic love is also psychological repression
What happened at the art museum makes one wonder, why is Marina so passionate about performance art?
Even one's own life and reputation can be disregarded.
The answer to this question is naturally inseparable from Marina's spiritual background, starting from Marina's childhood life environment and growth experience.
Marina is a Native of Yugoslavia and was born in 1946. During World War II, both of his parents were local guerrillas and followers of Tito.
His father was a combat hero and very brave; Marina's mother was a major, and because her parents were both soldiers, Marina received a suppressive and closed ideological education from an early age.
In Marina's impression, her mother was very strict with her and her brother, and from birth, all her and her brother's living habits and behaviors at home were militarized management.
With the continuous growth of age, Marina in her teenage years loves beautiful things more and shows a strong yearning for art and literature, and as a result, the contradictions between her and her mother become more and more numerous, because of her mother's various suppressions and thinking blockades, resulting in Marina's rebellious psychology becoming more and more serious.
(Emotional release in Marina's behavioral performance)
However, in the end, in the matter of education, Marina followed her mother's advice, chose to complete her university and graduate education, and began teaching at the Visa Art Institute in 1973.
With the gradual liberation from her mother's control, coupled with the long-term inner closed and repressive atmosphere, Marina began to integrate her inner depression into the pursuit and creation of art.
Because of the very in-depth study of the Balkan national culture, many of Marina's works are inspired by it, unrestrained enthusiasm, thought-provoking, and can also well vent Marina's long-term repressed emotions, and she has put her body and mind into the performance of performance art.
Among all her performance art, "Rhythm 0" is the most famous, this performance that can be called masochistic bystanders, infused with Marina's thinking about the good and evil of human nature.
Sixth, the special meaning behind this performance
In secular cognition, our positioning of human nature has always been full of good intentions, but the existence of such good intentions seems to need to meet many conditions, such as limited to the time when human beings exist independently.
Why? Man is an animal with social attributes, and when we place an independent individual in a group, changes in the environment and the influence of others will lead a person to do things that he himself cannot imagine.
(The complexity of human nature)
For example, before participating in this performance, the audience must be good citizens who abide by the law, and they are also under the control of various laws and regulations and moral rules.
But when Marinago tells viewers not to take any responsibility for their actions, this allows ordinary citizens to wander outside the boundaries of social rules.
After the performance began, after several stages of development, the audience went from showing the initial goodwill to gradually beginning to appear all kinds of pranks, so that in the end something uncontrollable happened.
(Audiences who perform various acts during the performance)
The reason why the whole experiment developed according to this trend was first of all because Marina did not react to either the malicious or well-intentioned behavior of the audience. More importantly, the audience who committed acts that harmed Marina did not receive any punishment from the victims or from society.
This phenomenon, or result, reinforces the impression of freedom from social control in everyone's mind, so their behavior gradually becomes more wanton and more vicious!
After the experiment, the audience returned to the normal social system, and people realized that the hurtful behavior made in the experiment at that time may be responsible.
Therefore, when they think of it, many viewers will feel so scared that when Marina approaches them step by step, they choose to retreat or run away, and some people even take the initiative to apologize to her the next day.
(Marina after the performance)
So through this experiment, we found that when a group is in a state of no social control, then the disposition of independent individuals can no longer change the overall situation.
On the contrary, once the behavior with malicious tendencies is not stopped or punished in time, then other people with good intentions may be guided to do things that they dare not believe.
epilogue
As the saying goes, "no rules are not square", as small as a family will have family rules, as large as a country will have laws and various rules and regulations, because when a person gets rid of legal and moral constraints, then it is likely to be the beginning of his "evil".
Human nature is complex, difficult to guess, and even less able to withstand the test. From ancient times to the present, countless scholars have discussed and analyzed "human nature", and finally found that they could not escape these words: they could not withstand temptation, and could not be overestimated.
Therefore, no one knows what human nature is, because there are too many weaknesses in human nature, and most people do not have the courage to even dare to test human nature.
However, there will always be a small number of people in the world who like to make bold attempts and explorations.
Guided by the original intention of pursuing art, the performance lasted a total of six hours, but the results of the experiment disappointed Marina so much that no one dared to try a similar experiment later.
Through this special performance, we find that Marina can definitely be called a real performance artist, she reveals a real world to the world, and proves that human nature is untestable.
("The Mother of Performance Art" Marina)
However, as to whether human nature is good or evil, we cannot analyze it separately from the environment and various external factors, because human beings are complex animals under the combined action of various factors.
Personally, I think that good and evil in human nature are complementary to each other, everyone's humanity and heart have a dark side, as long as this door is not opened, then human behavior can be controlled, but once the "evil" in the heart is triggered, it is likely to be doomed...