Mirror mirror in a shawl
Marina Abramovic sat in the Museum of Modern Art and stared at people. She remained quiet and still while museum visitors cycled through the chair across from her to lock eyes. Abramovic did this for 7 hours a day, six days a week for two and a half months. A marathon of performance art.
Some sat with her for minutes. Others for hours. People cried. And many more watched mesmerized from a distance. All while Abramovic sat intently passive.
She titled the exhibit The Artist is Present when she performed it 10 years ago. The work is only more powerful today as Americans increasingly live non-present lives behind screens and a global pandemic makes it unsafe to physically occupy tight spaces for extended periods of time.
And then there is the political climate.
On an Econ Talk episode from October 2019, Russ Roberts suggests that Republicans and Democrats in America should try a version of Abramovic’s exhibit. What if large groups of bleeding heart Liberals and dyed in the wool Conservatives took five minutes to be intently present with each other? On an individual level. No words, no news feeds. No political barbs or spin. Only eye contact.
An observation of Abramovic’s work was how emotionally moving it was for many of the participants. Could partisan Americans similarly be brought to tears by eye contact with someone from across the aisle? The product of seeing one’s humanity reflected in the eyes of another.
Better yet, if the most influential partisan pundits on Twitter were forced to sit in a room across from their sworn enemies for five minutes without speaking, could it make the online discourse more civil? If there was even an iota of emotional impact stemming from an exercise like this one, it would be worth it.
