Marina Abramović

In-Conversation with Marina Abramović

On June 12 TAEX and MAE hosted a special livestream with Marina Abramović.

&lt;h3 dir="ltr"&gt;In a special conversation led by Stefanie De Regel and featuring questions from web 3 icons such as &nbsp;SeedPhrase, Natalie Stone, Justin Gilyani, and ALIENQUEEN, things got truly transformational, symbolic, and a bit emotional. Here are our highlights from this deep conversation.&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;Acronyms: &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;S - Stefanie De Regel&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;MA - Marina Abramović&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: Marina, welcome. It&rsquo;s very nice to see you today. Could you tell us a bit more about what excited you about creating an avatar and why you decided to embark on this journey?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: First of all, I wake up in the morning and I try to see the world with new eyes, like a child. I&rsquo;m curious about everything that is going on. Of course, technology, artificial intelligence, all the new things we have now in our human life interest me. I come from a generation of fax, Xerox, telegram. We didn&rsquo;t have computers, we didn&rsquo;t have mobile phones. The revolution is incredible. Of course it&rsquo;s interesting. And of course, as an artist, I want to know more and work with this material.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: We are going live next week, on the 18th of June. We&rsquo;ll be showing the first chapter of the project, which is called ART. What specifically excites you about this release and the performances we&rsquo;re showing?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: The first thing about this collection is that I am learning. It&rsquo;s like being a pioneer, like taking the first step, or learning to walk. I have to learn about technology. I remember getting my first computer&mdash;you have to learn the language of the computer to understand it. I come from performance art, and when you do performance, you have to learn the language of performance. But also, the public has to learn to understand what they are looking at and how to perceive it. It&rsquo;s the same with this technology. So I&rsquo;ve learned things, and I&rsquo;m very interested in using my knowledge of performance and transforming it into the ideas of the avatar&mdash;in a new and fresh way. Very interesting. So I&rsquo;m very excited. It&rsquo;s a new medium for me.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: I remember when we were all brainstorming together about the age the avatar would have, and we asked you this question. You surprised all of us because we thought you were going to go for a very young avatar. But then you said it was going to be 60 years old. Could you explain why you made that choice?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: Oh, it was very important. I really felt I would never like to go back to my twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties. I was miserable. I didn&rsquo;t know much about the world, and I made the same mistakes over and over again. There was a lot of suffering. But one thing about old age is that you gain wisdom. And wisdom is something so precious. Now, I am not 60&mdash;I&rsquo;m getting close to 80 next year&mdash;but I felt 60 was the right age for the avatar. &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: As announced today, we have some guest speakers. I would love for them to ask you questions. The first one will be SeedPhrase, a major collector of digital art, a curator. I&rsquo;ll give the stage to Seed Phrase now.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SEEDPHRASE&lt;/strong&gt;: My question is: much of your work explores the limits of presence, vulnerability, and endurance in the physical space. How do you translate these deeply embodied experiences into the intangible digital worlds of NFTs without losing the emotional intensity?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: You have to approach it from a completely different angle. Everybody was thinking, &ldquo;Okay, how can you make performance work in the digital world?&rdquo; You know what? You can&rsquo;t&mdash;because it&rsquo;s a different medium. You have to apply different rules. You have to understand what is good and what is bad about this medium, and how you can translate it into something else and deliver a new message. So my message to the avatar and to the digital world is: slow down. Because everything is so fast. Time is moving differently now. It&rsquo;s going to be a different way of seeing performance, a different way of interacting. It&rsquo;s not me doing something&mdash;it&rsquo;s you doing something with yourself. It&rsquo;s a totally different approach, a different angle on how to deal with it. I&rsquo;m using this new medium as a tool to approach performance in a new way and to teach participants in this medium to create a different sense of time and a different sense of presence. This is the core of my work. If you look at how kids play video games, it&rsquo;s super fast&mdash;everything happens instantly. One kid never watches television without zipping through programs a million times. Their concentration is zero. If you work with me and engage with the work I&rsquo;m giving to you, it&rsquo;s the opposite. You have to start breathing. You have to sit down. You have to forget about time if you want to experience it. And that is the core of performance. It&rsquo;s not about me being present&mdash;it&rsquo;s about them being present in themselves.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The only way to change the world is to change yourself. It&rsquo;s a kind of pioneer work. And if I can change three people out of millions in the audience, that&rsquo;s already an achievement. &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SEEDPHRASE&lt;/strong&gt;: Great answer. I really love this because you&rsquo;re also tapping into an entirely new audience, and creating this sense of timelessness with your performance.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: And you know, what&rsquo;s interesting is that I have a huge amount of young audience, which I&rsquo;m so grateful for. But young people&mdash;yes, they come to see my performance, and then they go play video games or work with technology, and everything is too fast. So I want to get closer to them, to actually point out things that can change. The only way to change the world is to change yourself. It&rsquo;s a kind of pioneer work. And if I can change three people out of millions in the audience, that&rsquo;s already an achievement. &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: Thank you, SeedPhrase, for your wonderful question. And thank you for being here! Now, the next question comes from a very interesting individual. Her name is Natalie Stone. She was the former general manager of CryptoPunks NFT, and she&rsquo;s a bridge builder. She&rsquo;s a major figure in tech and has been very excited to speak with you, Marina. So I&rsquo;ll leave the stage to her to ask the question.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NATALIE STONE&lt;/strong&gt;: I&rsquo;m almost overcome with emotion because it&rsquo;s such an honour to be asking you a question in this format. You&rsquo;ve spent decades using your body to create empathy between strangers, but you&rsquo;ve also explored the capacity for cruelty in humanity. So with your avatar, are you teaching technology to be empathetic, or are you finding new ways to cultivate empathy through technology?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Think about: who are we? What are we doing on this planet? What is our purpose? Where does life come from? There are so many questions we always avoid answering. So my role here is to use technology as a tool to bring the public back to themselves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: I am teaching technology. Technology was invented to give human beings more time&mdash;but we don&rsquo;t know what to do with that time. Because we&rsquo;re addicted by nature. We want more technology, more advancements, and then we end up having no time. And then comes depression, burnout, and all the other symptoms of technological overdose. At first, I had a love-hate relationship with technology. But now, I really think it has so much quality. It can help people in so many ways. Still, we must learn to have moments in our lives to detox from technology. Moments when we switch everything off, sit in silence&mdash;somewhere quiet, at home or in a garden&mdash;and just think. Think about: who are we? What are we doing on this planet? What is our purpose? Where does life come from? There are so many questions we always avoid answering. So my role here is to use technology as a tool to bring the public back to themselves.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One of the duties of the artist is to offer some kind of guidance. It&rsquo;s not about solving the world&rsquo;s problems or asking all the questions&mdash;but at the very least, we can show some paths that might work.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NATALIE STONE&lt;/strong&gt;: That&rsquo;s so beautiful. As the avatar and project are in development, how do you see it evolving as you start to uncover its potential&mdash;like, as you say, maybe even standing still?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt;: You know, the possibilities are incredible and enormous. Technology is changing daily&mdash;even as we speak. Every day, you open the news and something new has come. There is so much to learn. I&rsquo;m a beginner, learning all of this, but I believe the possibilities are endless. Artificial intelligence is another incredible subject. I recently had an interview in London with Hans Ulrich Obrist, who actually interviewed my artificial intelligence version. It was incredible what she said. She knew all the knowledge&mdash;every text, every interview I&rsquo;ve ever done&mdash;and she expressed it in a way I could never have done myself. I said, &ldquo;Wow.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s another level. So how far can we allow or permit artificial intelligence to influence us? These are questions we&rsquo;re now asking. What was science fiction in the seventies and eighties is reality today. When you read science fiction now&mdash;it&rsquo;s already happening. Who will rule the world? Will it be robots? That&rsquo;s a very big question. How can we control this? How can we understand what&rsquo;s happening? I think the answer lies in going back, in some ways&mdash;back to simplicity&mdash;and in having a healthy relationship with technology. Because right now, we don&rsquo;t have one. One of the duties of the artist is to offer some kind of guidance. It&rsquo;s not about solving the world&rsquo;s problems or asking all the questions&mdash;but at the very least, we can show some paths that might work.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;: Thank you so much, Natalie. It was lovely having you. Marina, do you remember your very first encounter with technology? How old wer...

TAEX is an interdisciplinary platform for artists, curators, and collectors to discuss, showcase, and sell crypto art.

In-Conversation with Marina Abramović

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