Meh… Well, I’ve seen creepier. I don’t really know much about masochism (it’s never been a field I’ve gone out of my way to learn about), but after watching these videos, it seems to me that masochism is selfish. It is obsessed with the self. And the self is made important through odd and seemingly contradictory ways.
Masochists disregard personal health and well-being for pleasure. Objects of pleasure are not necessarily beneficial to the body. Moreover, pleasurable things are addictive, whether be psychologically or biologically.
In addition to disregarding individual wellness, masochism eliminates the importance of individual perspective. Masochist acts may appear painful to one person, but to another maybe appear beautiful and wonder. For masochists, the first—the idea that an act is painful—is obsolete, because those are the acts that are seen as pleasurable. What other individuals think matters not.
These two precepts coalesce to form an understanding of the relationship between masochism and the self. We know from the sex sounds Marina makes that nearly ripping out her hair gives her pleasure. This is important because Mariana is pleasured despite what we may be feeling in response to this. Realizing the discrepancy between what we feel and what she feels has an odd effect; instead of alienating us from the piece, it draws us further in. Really, this is an act. It’s not an act in that it is fake, but in that it is meant for an audience. Marina is both the artist and the art that she keeps talking about. The fact that she’s naked seeks to embody the beauty of the art/artist. She is the one that elicits feeling from us. She creates a rhythm in her piece—a waxing and waning of pleasure/pain—that invests us more in an awareness her feelings and our response. Similarly, Ron Athey creates a performance of emotion. Athey and Marine’s nakedness both seem to demonstrate the power of masochism rather than the vulnerability of the individual. The difference between the performers and us creates intrigue. And the intrigue emphasizes the importance of the performers’ selves.
I find it curious that you claim that the self is "made important" in both cases without considering the primary difference between Athey and Abramovic--one is a man and the other is a woman (biologically, anyway). One is performing masculinity and the other femininity. Surely you need to take this into account before you can make such a sweeping statement about a reinforcement of self in these performances?
ReplyDeleteBecause Athey was literally performing for an audience, and Abramovic performing for viewers by a camera, I think it would be useful to consider who the audience is. Perhaps their masochistic performances are intended for other masochists--especially in Athey's situation. I wonder if the "self" that emerges in both clips comes from a shared understanding of the pleasure in pain, instead of the discrepancy between the opinions of masochists and non-masochists.
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