Exploring the Body and Its Significance: Uncovering Integrity in Marina Abramović’s Performance Art 'Rhythm' Series

Abstract

Marina Abramović’s Rhythm series (1973–74) is frequently positioned as a defining moment in performance art, particularly in relation to the use of the body as both medium and site of inquiry. Yet the extent to which these works genuinely destabilize authorship or instead reorganize it under highly controlled conditions remains open to debate. Rather than offering a purely descriptive content, that paper examines specific moments across the series with particular attention to Rhythm 0 where audience behaviour begins to shift in ways that are difficult to predict or fully explain. Drawing on phenomenology, feminist theory, psychoanalysis and performance studies the paper argues that the series does not simply expose vulnerability but constructs situations in which moral limits become unstable. Across the progression from Rhythm 10 to Rhythm 0, the body moves from a site of self-directed action to one increasingly shaped by external forces. What emerges is not a complete loss but a redistribution of it often uneven, and at times difficult to locate. Ultimately, the paper suggests that Abramović’s work continues to resonate because it does not resolve the tensions it produces, particularly around responsibility, spectatorship and violence where how people act in groups becomes particularly around responsibility, spectatorship and moments where audience reactions become unstable (Abramović, Marina, and Klaus Biesenbach).