![]() ![]() The whole room looks like some futile punishment, equivalent to writing lines in detention, or a Scientology course you'd pay thousands to take. But most are doing their diligent best with the rice grain and lentil bookkeeping. I quite expect some poor soul to stick a pencil up their nose, as a sign of resistance. One or two have gone off piste, drawing round the grains and making weird drawings, or forming the grains into crosses and spirals. People are sorting and counting grains and pulses, separating the green from the white, and making little notes on the paper. ukĮveryone has a nice sharp pencil, with a little rubber at the blunt end. Marina Abramović to teach you mindfulness by slowly drinking a glass of water, writing your name on a piece of paper and counting grains of rice. On each desk is a sheet of paper, and little piles of grains of dry, white rice and green lentils. Pacing unheard behind these bowed heads, peering over their shoulders, I become an inadvertent invigilator. Something disturbing is happening in the last room, where rows of people sit at little desks, head down, as if they were in a school exam. But I am not moving so slowly as the people in the west gallery, making their way from one end of the space to the other, just like the dawdling tourists and amateur pedestrians I wove between on my way here. I don't want the artist or one of her assistants on my case. If I open my eyes, will I find Alain de Botton standing before me, making lewd gestures and grimaces? So I keep moving, avoiding eye contact. It is as though I am on drugs, but not in a fun, "Walter Benjamin on hashish in Marseille" way. You do hear voices, don't you?įeeling both present and strangely cut off, I am more spectator than actor. ![]() It is hard not to tear the damn things off. John Cage's silence was never so silent as this, apart from the gurgling in my sinuses and the sensation – it is a hot, humid day – that my headphones are filling up with sweat. But not me I'm not your man.Īt least in psychotherapy, there's always someone to talk to. People spend years at this, up mountains, in ashrams, in community-centre workshops, all following "the way", whatever way you choose. What are we meant to think about when we are meant to be thinking about nothing more than being here? Not thinking, just being. There are chairs, where we can sit and watch, betting on who will last longest. People are standing on the low plinth of shallow, polished wooden boxes (now in the form of a large cross) in the north gallery like a flashmob of crowdsourced statues. Some here are clearly in a zone beyond the Serpentine. Sexual fantasy, should I try Botox, and did I leave the iron on? It is hard to be in the moment. Thoughts of bills to pay and world peace. There is never nothing, always something. On my first visit she and her helpers took us, one by one, to stand in front of the walls and windows, where we stood, eyes closed, to think about the present, or whatever it is we think about when we are standing, waiting for nothing. Photograph: Marco/Marco Anelliīeyond, in the galleries, the people come and go, thinking (doubtless) of Marina. Abramović is performing at the Serpentine Gallery from 11 June to 25 August. ![]()
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