Back in 2010, "the 63-year-old queen of performance art Marina Abramović, dressed in a flowing dark-blue dress, and looking extremely pale, sat down at a small table in the towering atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, motionless and silent, every day during museum opening hours over three months" (The Guardian). Members of the public could share in her presence by sitting in the empty chair opposite her and engaging in silent eye contact for as long as they wanted, or as long as they could. They just stared each other, probably getting inspiration or energy of some sort. It was part of her retrospective, The Artist Is Present – the first career survey MoMa has ever given to a performance artist.
Now you've got the chance to have a similar sort of human connection.
On October 15th, 2015, over 45,000 perfect strangers across 50 cities will be sitting in public spaces to share eye contact with one another. This is part of The World Biggest Eye Contact Event coordinated by the The Liberators International to connect us with one another - again, since human connection seems to be gone. Participating cities include: Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Montreal, Toronto, Prague, London, Helsinki, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Ibiza, Boston, and Los Angeles, amongst dozens of others. (For a full list of participating cities click HERE.)
To participate, show up on Thursday the 15th of October at 3.30 pm at the Museu Nacional. Simply find a person who is sitting with an appropriate amount of space in front of them, then park yourself in that space and look at the person opposite you. Really truly look at them. Do you have any idea how things will escalate?
Local organizers will film their version of the experiment and send their footage to The Liberators International for use in a compilation video! Check out the following video, which shows footage from one run at an earlier date:
I’m incredibly curious to see how this social experiment goes in Brasília! Find out more about it via the event’s official Facebook page. The global event page can be found at www.facebook.com/events/669642313172865.
Warning: there will be hugs
