Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic, from Yogoslavia, performed a series of works based on ideas of ritual, bodily pain, and the state of conciousness of the performer. In a work titled "Rhythm 10" she used knives to ritually stab her fingers, in "Rhythm 5" she ultimately passed out from lack of oxygen beneath a flaming star, in "Rhythm 2" she ingested various drugs that altered her body mechanics and mental states, and in "Rhythm 0" she had audience members inflict pain, with various instruments, upon her for six hours. She felt that during the high energy of a performance her body could withstand things it normally could not. In "Rhythm 0", Abramovic explored the relationship between an audience member and the performer, a strongly reoccuring theme in performance art, by giving the audience a choice to inflict harm against her without consequence. From all the performances we have studied with the theme of audience/performer boundries, I think this piece is the most powerful. Since Abramovic, considered the "performer", is completely passive to any act by the "audience", the roles of each are reversed. And when the action is that of real violence, the performance by the "audience" is heighted, made more real, in the present.