Feeling Violet
Marina Abramović, “Rhythm 0,” 1974
Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art. Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,” in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted. So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people.
Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite. 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.
(Source: skitzkain, via thecityburneddown)
#affirmations #maycausemiracles #acourseinmiracles #spiritjunkie
Today I choose to be great…
(Source: goddesssabrina, via gettinghealthynfit)
Mind Reading - When you make assumptions about what somebody is thinking or feeling without them telling you. In reality, you are delusional or paranoid.
Catastrophize - when you over think a problem and the effects that they will actually have on you. For example, when you think that losing a relationship means the end of your life when really you can find someone new the next day or down the line.
Filtering - when you only pay attention to one side of things. For example, you only remember the bad times you had in school and not the good ones.
Polarized thinking - when you think of things as either black or white or good or bad. For example, there can only be good or bad people or success or fails.
Personalization - when you take everything too personally. For example, when you think that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you.
Blaming - when you hold other people accountable for your problems. For example, you blame someone else for causing you to make a bad decision. In actuality, you were the one who made the wrong call based on your own judgement.
To accomplish a task, one of the key factor to it’s success is to focus your attention solely on the task. However, it’s hard to focus when you’re so easily distracted. In this article, I try to provide some tips that I find helpful. After reading this article, feel free to share your tips too so…
Pablos Herrero - Images of Drought (2012)
(Source: likeafieldmouse, via thecolourfulmind)
Last written words of Anne Frank (1929-1945). India ink on ivory paper, 9” x 12”.
