Marina Abramovic Rhythm 0 Performance Video Full ((new)) (2025)

The violence escalates. Using the razor blade, an audience member cuts her neck just enough to draw blood. Another sucks the wound. The video shows Abramović’s eyes watering, but she does not move. She has ceded control.

When you press play, watch her eyes. For five hours, she is blank. But in the sixth hour, when the audience runs away, those eyes hold a question that has never been answered: “Would you have stopped?”

Deindividuation occurs when individuals in a group lose their sense of personal identity and moral responsibility, often because of anonymity, shared emotional arousal, and the diffusion of accountability. In Rhythm 0, multiple factors created the perfect conditions for deindividuation:

No legal charges were ever filed, as she had given prior consent. But the performance permanently altered her relationship to trust. Rhythm 0 became the dark twin of her later, more meditative works like The Artist Is Present (2010), where she sat silently across from strangers—this time, with safety measures in place. marina abramovic rhythm 0 performance video full

That artist was Marina Abramović, and the piece was Rhythm 0 .

When the performance ended and she began to move again, the audience fled, unable to face her as a human being rather than an object. Why Rhythm 0 Matters: The Legacy Rhythm 0 is fundamentally about power and responsibility .

Abramović stood motionless in a gallery in Naples for six hours, placing 72 objects on a table—including a rose, honey, scissors, a scalpel, and a . A sign invited the audience to use these objects on her however they wished, stating, "I am the object". Insights from the Performance The violence escalates

Abramović placed a sign next to the table of 72 objects that read:

Then, gradually, someone stepped forward.

She stood motionless. She had washed her hair and removed all makeup. She did not speak. For the first hour, the audience was polite. They moved her arms. They gave her the rose. They turned her around. The video shows Abramović’s eyes watering, but she

When the six hours concluded and the artist began to move and interact as a person rather than an "object," the atmosphere shifted instantly. Reports indicate that many participants were unable to confront the artist once the social experiment had ended and the boundary between object and human was restored.

Rhythm 0 was the final installment in Abramović’s Rhythm series, a collection of performances where she tested the limits of her own physical and mental endurance. For this specific piece, staged at Studio Morra in Naples, she wanted to explore the relationship between the artist and the audience. Specifically, she wanted to see how much power the public would claim if they were given absolute freedom with no consequences.

Towards the end, the crowd became aggressive. According to, one man loaded the gun, placed it against her head, and another person pointed it. The gallery owners intervened, breaking the performance to prevent a murder. Key Moments from the Full Performance Video

I also recommend the 2016 documentary Marina Abramović: The Space Between , which includes detailed discussion of Rhythm 0 with archival footage.