The lesson I learned was... If you leave the decision to people, you could be killed... I really felt violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, and licked my blood. One man pointed the gun at my head, the other took it...
Marina Abramovich
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you gave your fate entirely to a stranger?
What if you lose the ability to make decisions for yourself, and worse, if you completely lose the ability to say "no"?
More or less, many of us do this unconsciously every day. We care more about what strangers think, so much so that we are more polite and caring about people we barely know.
Rhythm 0 performance
We care so much about strangers that we change the way we talk and dress so they don't judge us. We let strangers tell us what we can and can't do, what we have the ability to do, and worst of all, we do it without blinking an eye.
But what if we take this example to the extreme?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" > a heart-wrenching "rhythmic performance."</h1>
In 1979, Marina Abramovic, a Soviet performance artist, created one of the most controversial and dangerous performances in art history. She calls it "Rhythm 0," and it's both a bold work of contemporary art and a massive social experiment that unveils the veil of humanity, exposing the consequences of handing our own bodies and lives into the hands of strangers.
The show was arranged like this: Marina stood motionless in the center of a room in the gallery — as if she were a human model — and held the pose for 6 hours in a row.
In this room, she prepares 72 different items, including many designed to provide psychological and sensory pleasure, such as flowers, feathers, water, bread, perfume, fruit and honey.
On the other hand, these items also include tools that have the potential to cause pain, potential danger and lethality; These included knives, scissors, saws, bows and arrows, axes, chains, and even a pistol with bullets.
In the hall of the show, Marina placed a sign with instructions that participants should follow.
There are 72 items on the table that can be used on me as needed.
I am the object.
In the meantime, I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 p.m. to 2 a.m.)
Marina allows strangers to act on her with the utmost freedom, to make her an object without fear of the consequences of violence or abuse— not just ethical or moral, but criminal.
For 6 hours, she completely put her life and body into the hands of strangers, turning herself into a freewheeling object. Just like people hope. During this time, she would remain passive and would not react until the end of the experiment.
For the audience, there are no immediate consequences. What do you think happened?
At 8 o'clock in the evening, after Marina anesthetized her body, dozens of spectators came to the room. In the first few hours of the experiment, people did not act out of bounds, but hesitated in front of Marina's motionless body.
Gradually, people became bold. Someone turned her around, someone held her arm in the air, someone touched her intimately. Their gestures then became slightly more exploratory forms of touch.
Over time, the violence began to escalate when people realized that Marina would not react to any of their actions. Some began to reach out and tease her, pouring water on her head, writing on her, touching her with feathers and starting to tickle her.
The longer time passes, the more violent the cruel acts become.
Some simply cut off her clothes, leaving her naked, and then stuck the thorns in the roses into her flesh. Others slashed her neck with blades, licking the blood that was flowing out.
One participant even loaded the gun and held it in her hand, fingers pulling on the trigger and pointing at her head. Just then, another man pushed the gun away, and a conflict broke out between the two sides: one side wanted to protect Marina, the other side wanted to hurt her further, and finally the gun was thrown out the window.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="100" > this experiment proves that human nature is evil</h1>
At the end of the 6 hours, the curator announces the end of the performance. Marina stood up, tears in her eyes and blood dripping from her neck, and walked toward the audience.
As she walked toward her tormentors, they showed human cowardice and inability to take responsibility for themselves. Seeing the "resurrected" Marina, transforming from an object back to a human form, they were frightened to retreat, almost escaping, and doing everything possible to avoid the gaze or close contact with Marina. No one dared to look her calmly into her eyes.
Marina observed that people did not want any confrontation with her. They don't want to take responsibility or be judged for what they do. It seemed as if they wanted to forget how much they had just liked to hurt her.
When it was all over, Marina said this: What I learned was... If you give yourself to a stranger, they could really kill you.
This realization reveals the horrors of human nature.
It shows how quickly a person hurts you in a favorable environment (with no punishment).
It shows that if one provides the stage, most "normal" people can obviously turn into real violence.
Thus, this experiment proves that human nature is evil.
People behave properly, mainly because:
Fear of social condemnation
Fear of legal punishment
Without these two fears, people will expose their nature and do many terrible things.
Like sociological experiments, Marina's performance demonstrates the disturbing fact that humans will have unprecedented, unlimited violence against anyone in a subordinate position. On that occasion, Marina risked her life to show people that anyone can be the perpetrator of abuse and prevarication against those who are weak or unable to protect themselves.
In addition, the performance can show the cowardice of human beings and the shame he feels in the face of his own oppression, abuse and abuse; if a person has the opportunity, he is naturally inclined to treat others as objects, but he does not have the courage to face the eyes of the victim and face the consequences of the sins he has committed.