A visual experiment by a "performance granny" (6 photos + 1 video)
Marina Abramovic, a Serbian artist, is known worldwide for her works. She is a recognized creator and her performances are truly very telling and visual. Once she invited people to answer the question of what would happen to a person if they were allowed to do absolutely everything. 
In 1974, Abramovic held the action "Rhythm 0" in Naples. The idea was extremely simple: Marina stood motionless for six hours, and visitors were given instructions. Also quite simple. "You see 72 objects on the table that can be used on me at will. I am the object. During this period, I take full responsibility. Duration: 6 hours (8 p.m. - 2 a.m.)". 
On the table, near Marina, there were objects "for pleasure" and "for destruction". Flowers, feathers, razor blades and a gun... A loaded gun.
At first, the spectators timidly touched Abramovic. They carefully kissed, touched, gave her flowers, lifted her arms. Then, gradually, all the clothes were pulled off the woman. The men touched her everywhere, laughing disgustingly. One of them made a cut on Marina's neck with a blade and then stuck a bandage on top. They laid Abramovic naked on the table, spread her legs and stuck a knife into the tabletop, between her thighs.
At first they simply ran a rose over the artist's skin, but after a few hours they began to prick her with thorns. They poured cold water and oil on her skin alternately, and attached signs with different inscriptions to Marina's body. And then one of the guests picked up a gun... He put it in Abramovich's hand, checked if it was loaded, put his hand with the gun to the woman's temple and tried to pull the trigger with her finger. That's when the security guards intervened.
This whole nightmare was accompanied by laughter and teasing each other.
It struck two in the morning when the exhausted, bloody, almost completely naked artist stood up and with tears in her eyes went to her tormentors. They rushed to the door.
Marina reached the hotel. She later recalled:
"At first the audience really wanted to play with me. Then they became more and more aggressive, it was six hours of real horror. They cut my hair, stuck rose thorns into my body, cut the skin on my neck, and then put a bandage on the wound. After six hours of the performance, I walked naked towards the audience with tears in my eyes, which made them literally run out of the room, because they realized that I had "come to life" - I had stopped being their toy and had begun to control my own body. I remember that when I came to the hotel that evening and looked at myself in the mirror, I discovered a strand of gray hair."
The artist's performance "Rhythm 0" very clearly and with terrifying speed demonstrates what impunity and absolute free will can do. It is always important to remember that only a barely noticeable layer of fear of punishment separates us from absolute inhumanity.
"This work reveals something terrible about humanity. It shows how quickly a person can hurt you under the right circumstances. It shows how easy it is to depersonalize a person who does not resist, who does not defend himself. It shows that, if the right circumstances are created, most "normal" people can apparently become very cruel."
