Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

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 Abramović 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.

>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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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