A practical exploration of the boundaries within the relationship of the artist and audience inspired by Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 (1974) and The House with The Ocean View (2002).

Abstract

"To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake. The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real." (Ayer 2010). Marina Abramovic is daring and ruthless with regard to her creative investigations. The relationship that Abramovic has with her audience/spectators is unique in the sense of intensity in their relationship and it has altered throughout her career. The scope of the study is to examine her methods and analyzing the boundaries and power that she bestows upon her spectators in Rhythm 0 and The House with The Ocean View. In order to fully comprehend Abramovic's practice, this study was carried out through research into her work, a practical investigation and further reflection upon this. The relationship of the artist and audience was tested during a twenty minute experiment. The first ten minutes of the experiment were used to show the contrast between the researcher having power and arguably holding control of the piece through the distinguished spaces for the artist and the audience, taking inspiration from The House with The Ocean View. By contrast, the last ten minutes of the experiment will show the distinction through altering the boundaries of power and control, and allowing the audience to arguably obtain these, consequently impacting their own markings on the artist as the artist takes a passive stance.