After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the emotional connections formed during silent interactions and the scientific curiosity it evokes.
Marina Abramovic's quote speaks to the profound impact of non-verbal communication and the deep emotional responses it can elicit. After her performance 'The Artist is Present' at MoMA, she observed that many participants cried during their silent exchanges, prompting both her and scientists to explore the neurological and psychological effects of such intimate, wordless encounters.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of art on emotional well-being, this quote can illustrate the power of silent connection.
All the aggressive actions I do to myself I would never dream of doing in my own life - I am not this kind of person. I cry if I cut myself peeling potatoes. I am taking the plane, there is turbulence, I am shaking. In performance, I become, somehow, like not a mortal.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.
First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.
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.
I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.
THE POET A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon's edge, Searched with Apollo's privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea, and star, Saw the dance of nature forward far; Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times, Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes. Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.
I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn the money I require to take care of my wife and children.
The world is filled with archaic objects - mailboxes which look like alarm boxes, banks which look like places to break out of rather than places to enter.
I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know. Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.
Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,_x000D_ _x000D_ On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;_x000D_ _x000D_ But on thy turf shall roses rear_x000D_ _x000D_ Their leaves, the earliest of the year.
What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.