“This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.
Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.”
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.”
this is why performance art is important
So every single person who told me ‘ignore them they’ll go away’ and ‘you can’t let them know they bothered you’ and ‘They’ll stop if they don’t see you react’ and all that bull shit, my entire school career, I want you to look good and hard at this.
I want you to think about what you said.
What you keep saying.
What you are telling your children.
You are making them powerless.
that last comment. actually crying.
This is why it pisses me off to no end that schools don’t let kids stand up for themselves anymore.
I remember getting those lectures back in high school. “Just leave them alone, you’re just giving them attention, that’s all they want.” I tried and I tried. Then one day I got sick of trying. Asshole decided to sit down and taunt me at lunch. I put up with it… and then as they were walking off, decided I’d had enough. So I stood up, picked up my chair, and hurled it at the kid’s head. Missed, got laughed at a little bit by the people around me…but the kid who did it looked at me with pure fear, because it was the first I’d reacted.
In the end, only one thing came from it:
That douche never bothered me again.
27. Chaotic Neutral INFP, techie, Blizzard gamer. Possibly a shitposting robot. Anti-authority, anti-fascist, far-left radical.