Chilling reason woman let strangers do ‘whatever they wanted’ to her in disturbing experiment
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: John Snelling/Getty Images
Warning: This article contains graphic content which some readers may find distressing
A performance artist gave up her body for the purposes of a 'social experiment', which allowed people to do 'whatever they wanted' to her.
Rewind back to 1974, and Marina Abramović took on arguably one of the most shocking performance pieces the world has ever seen.
The Serbian artist was keen to test the extent of human behaviour, and did so by putting herself in the most vulnerable of positions.
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Spectators were told they could do 'whatever they wanted' to her without repercussion, using 72 objects she had laid out on a table in front of her.
The situation could have quite easily ended up a deadly one, but Abramović noted that it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
She stood for six hours straight while she endured the public humiliation, and items on the table included a rose, a feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun and even a bullet.
Abramović also left a note which read: "There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
"Performance: I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility."
During the initial stages of the experiment, spectators were visibly hesitant, seemingly baffled as to how far they were permitted to go.
The first few hours were littered with passersby, adorning her with the flowers she'd laid out for them and planting kisses on her cheek.
Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present the entire time, later opened up about what he saw that day.
"It began tamely," he recalled. "Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately. The Neapolitan night began to heat up."
After three hours, however, the atmosphere within the gallery shifted entirely and the experiment descended into a whirlwind of abuse.
While one spectator used a razor blade from the display to cut her clothes from her body until she stood nude, another allegedly used the same instrument to cut her skin.
McEvilley recalled: "Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder."
Among the other horrific things inflicted upon the artist was that a knife was placed dangerously between her legs, while a gun was thrust to her head, with her own finger being placed on the trigger.
Others, however, wiped her tears and protected her, with some even fighting the more 'dangerous' members of the crowd.
Throughout the entire ordeal, however, Abramović remained straight-faced and refused to give in to her fear.
Following the performance, she opened up about the lessons it had taught her about the influence of crowd mentality and admitted she was prepared to sacrifice her life for the sake of knowledge.
Speaking in a video shared on the Marina Abramović Institute YouTube channel in 2016, she recalled: "I start moving. I start being myself [...] and, at that moment, everybody ran away. People could not actually confront with me as a person.
"The experience I drew from this piece was that in your own performances you can go very far, but if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed."
And according to The Guardian, Abramović said: "I was ready to die."