Marina: Abramovic Rhythm 0 __exclusive__

★★★★★ (Essential viewing for anyone who believes in innate human goodness.)

Abramović later wrote: “What I learned was that if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.”

Rhythm 0 was a six-hour performance at Studio Morra in Naples. Abramović placed 72 objects on a table (including a rose, a feather, honey, a scalpel, scissors, a whip, a gun with a single bullet) and invited the public to use them on her in any way they chose . She stood passively for six hours, her body the neutral object of their actions.

The first hour was tame: people turned her, offered her the rose, kissed her. The second hour grew sharper: clothes were cut off, thorns pressed into her skin. By the third hour, the mob mentality had fully set in. She was cut, stripped, and laid on a table. People loaded the gun and pressed it to her temple. A fight broke out between those trying to protect her and those escalating the violence.