skeleton with a pile of rocks on top of him

with a note next to him that says 'i sure hope these rocks don't fall on my head'

I actually went to this. It was a Marina Abramovic retrospective. I think the naked bouncers were only posted in position every now and again, cos I definitely did not have to squeeze past them. And that guy in particular was must've swapped around in the exhibition cos when I saw him he was lying down on a table, face-up with his nob out.

Also, one of the exhibits had this old lady wearing white robes, doing a fast on some structure elevated above the crowd. She would only drink water for the whole run of the exhibition. Her entire living space was essentially cross sectioned, so that even her toilet was on display for all to see - and where she slept, and so on. She looked absolutely miserable but her eyes said 'dont worry, I'm on a spiritual/artistic journey'.

There was a quote from Abramovic (whose work this lady was replicating), about how on day 4 she went a bit loopy and felt like she could see everyone's energetic wavelengths or something.

Anyway, I thought the old lady could do with a morale boost so I smiled and waved at her, and gave a nod of 'respect, brah'. People were not pleased with that. I felt a sudden encirclement of dirty looks. Even my partner was a bit pissed off that I did it.

The experience introduced to me the debate of 'what even is arts etiquette'? Am I not free to consume it however I want? It's performance art - the whole point is the relationship between the live subject and connection you feel with them in the room. I said sorry anyway, and I can see that I was being a bit of a bellend, if I'm honest...

But inside I wondered - why am I the bellend? I'm the only person here treating the other human in the room like a human rather than like a zoo animal. The etiquette is to navel gaze and swill your wine. No wonder performance art is almost exclusively the realm of middle and upper classes.

If I was her - stuck in the rafters of the Royal Academy for a week, people staring me down every single time I take an increasingly watery shit - I'd at least want someone to rock-paper-scissors me at some point.

QUICK

SEND 60 BILLION DOLLARS TO ISRAEL

edit: I like that as of now there's almost as many comments on the post as there are upvotes, and yet there is no struggle session to be seen.

It's just that such a high number of people have had an absolutely guttural reaction of disgust that it needed to be put into words and shared.

I also think some people could simply not bring themselves to upvote such a psychically damaging image. Or they were turned to stone by it.

My partner is an intelligent well-meaning liberal (in comparison to me, a terrible, ill-hearted Leninist).

Political violence is our only major disagreement.

She isn't a fan of the fact that if I ever get a terminal disease then it might be for me.

well, he's won then.

'kiddos'

It's always the same

I swear I could sniff out a liberal through their speech alone with like 99% accuracy

Mandatory Amazon warehouse story:

They have rate trackers, to track how fast a worker scans items or whatever. You get constantly hounded by supervisors if you don't hit your rates. On the screens by your stations, there's constant reminders to take wellbeing breaks and stretch breaks and stuff, even though that's an impossibility if you want to hit your rate.

Then there's these 'wellness booths'. I believe they were soundproof. They were just little huts people would go into to have their breakdowns or to escape the constant noise of the warehouse.

Then there's the vending machines. You can swipe your worker ID card to get free painkillers. No, I'm not joking. They have vending machines for free paracetamol.

It's crazy how often I reference my time at Amazon, when I only worked there for like 3-4 months.

She's completely fried. I know we joke about liberals short circuiting sometimes, but I think it this case it might have actually happened.

Her entire worldview in the past year has been on the brink of being shattered. Israel keeps doing worse and worse things, and more of the world keeps condemning it. If she accepts Israel is wrong, it opens the gate for the rest of her worldview to come crashing down - essentially a mental breakdown.

So instead, she's become more entrenched and is now having a breakdown in the opposite direction. I'm being completely serious - a close family member of mine had a total mental breakdown because their worldview (of them being a great parent) was shattered by reality, and they haven't been the same since. I can match this person's text behaviours to the shit Fartlow sharts over twitter. I really think they've totally lost it.

If this is from a pro-ukraine group, I wonder if the media will treat it like they've treated Hamas in relation to October 7th.

I doubt it.

edit: wow, ISIS.

was the sun going down when he was getting angry and anxious by any chance?