I remember hearing about this, it fucking rocked me. So very relevant to our world right now. Please read.
In 1974, Serbian performance artist Marina AbramoviÄ created one of the most disturbing works in modern art.
Rhythm 0 took place at Studio Morra in Naples and lasted six hours. AbramoviÄ stood motionless beside a table containing 72 objects. The audience was told they could use any of them on her and that she would accept full responsibility.
Some objects were harmless: a rose, a feather, honey and flowers. Others could wound or kill: scissors, razor blades, knives, a whip, a gun and a single bullet.
At first, people treated her gently. They gave her flowers, kissed her and carefully moved her body.
Then the atmosphere changed.
Once the audience understood that AbramoviÄ would not resist, speak or defend herself, some people began testing how far they could go. Her clothes were cut away. Her skin was cut with a razor. Rose thorns were pressed into her body. She was exposed, humiliated and treated not as a human being, but as an object available for public use.
At one point, someone placed the loaded gun against her neck. Another audience member intervened. By then, the crowd had divided between those willing to harm her, those trying to protect her and those who simply stood nearby and watched.
That third group matters.
The lesson of Rhythm 0 is not only that some people will become cruel when they are given power and believe there will be no consequences. It is also that cruelty depends on spectators.
Abuse rarely survives through the actions of one person alone. It survives because others remain silent, look away, avoid taking sides or convince themselves that what is happening is not their responsibility.
The people watching AbramoviÄ were not all as culpable as those cutting and threatening her. But their passivity helped create the environment in which the abuse could continue. Silence did not make them neutral. It made them part of the conditions that allowed it.
When the six hours ended, AbramoviÄ began moving and walked towards the audience.
The relationship changed instantly. She was no longer a silent object. She was a person looking directly at those who had touched her, cut her, threatened her or watched it happen.
According to AbramoviÄ, many could not face her. They avoided her gaze or left the room rather than confront what they had doneāor what they had allowed others to do.
That is why Rhythm 0 remains relevant.
The world is full of people who insist they are ānot political,ā ādo not take sidesā or prefer to stay out of conflict. But when people are being abused, persecuted, exploited or dehumanised, refusing to take a position is itself a position. It protects the status quo and leaves the victim to face the aggressor alone.
You do not need to be perfect, powerful or heroic. You do not need to devote every waking moment to activism. But every person has some capacity to object, intervene, speak, organise, vote, support victims, challenge lies or refuse to cooperate with cruelty.
Those who use that capacity to harm others deserve condemnation.
Those who have the power to resist and repeatedly choose silence should not congratulate themselves for being neutral. They should ask why their comfort mattered more than another personās suffering.
A better world is not created by private decency alone. It is created when people are willing to make their values visible, oppose those doing harm and accept some personal cost for standing beside those with less power.
Rhythm 0 was not only a warning about what bad people may do.
It was a warning about what everyone else may allow.