Marina Abramovic Rhythm 0 May 2026

A significant academic paper regarding Marina Abramović 's 1974 performance piece Rhythm 0 is "The (Anti)Body in Marina Abramović's Rhythm 0," available on ResearchGate. This paper explores the performance through the lens of the "abject" and the "(anti)body," examining how the piece disrupts traditional power dynamics and patriarchal frameworks of viewing. Other notable academic resources and papers include:

• Abramovic, M. (2010). The Artist is Present. New York: Distributed Art Publishers.
• Jones, A. (1998). Body Art: Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Guasch, A. M. (2011). Marina Abramovic: A Life in Performance. London: Black Dog Publishing.

• Someone used the scalpel to carve cuts into her neck, then drank her blood.
• Another person pinned her hand to the table using the thorns from the rose.
• Several men stripped her naked, tearing off the remaining clothes.
• The Polaroid camera came out. People took photos of her naked body, then placed the wet prints in her own hand.
• Someone used the chain to bind her legs open.

1. No real harm: The avatar cannot be a real person, webcam feed, or AI that feels pain.
2. No permanent records of individual users' "cruelest" action (only aggregates).
3. Trigger warning upfront: "This feature explores passive aggression and dehumanization. You may witness your own capacity for harm."
4. Mandatory debrief linking to the original performance and psychological resources on bystander effect.

Abstract

Marina Abramović’s 1974 performance Rhythm 0 stands as a landmark experiment in the boundaries of the artist’s body, audience psychology, and institutional ethics. Lasting six hours, the piece invited the public to use any of 72 objects on the artist’s passive body as they wished. The results—ranging from gentle caresses to life-threatening violence—revealed a disturbing trajectory of human behavior when faced with absolute permission and no consequence. This paper analyzes Rhythm 0 through primary accounts, subsequent interviews, and theoretical frameworks including Foucault’s biopower, Milgram’s obedience studies, and feminist critiques of the female body as object. Ultimately, it argues that Rhythm 0 functions as a prophetic mirror: the performance did not create violence but rather unmasked the latent aggression within a civil European audience under the cover of art. marina abramovic rhythm 0