I Went To 'Marina Abramovic: In Residence' And Mainly Felt Anxious

It’s something the arts world hates to admit, but we’re anxious people.

We rarely achieve the transcendence over the limitations of our bodies and minds we’d like to. We rarely manage to achieve a sense of mindfulness that makes us content to stand in one place for hours at a time. We rarely stop thinking, and maybe that’s because we’re creators, and it’s daunting to think that one day we’ll run out of ideas.

It’s not that it’s not a perfectly valuable thing to do, to slow things down for a little bit, to have some space, to feel and share energies with one another, to exist away from the pressures of our hyperactive everyday lives. It could allow us to bring everything back into perspective, a jolt to the brain that makes our work more present, more current — better. It’s art but, as Abramović herself says, that’s because of its context — a person baking a pie in a gallery space is an artist, in a kitchen, a cook.

Maybe it was my reluctance to be “taken on a physical and emotional journey”; maybe I got close to getting it, only to let my anxious mind cloud over; maybe I became too self-conscious. Maybe I have a long way to go with the Abramović Method and need to do more breathing exercises, go all-out nude a la Lady Gaga, and spend more time, un-self-consciously, not bound within a fairly structured coat, to shake out my negative energies.

I couldn’t stop thinking. I couldn’t focus. And it made me feel anxious, like what I was doing wasn’t good enough.

I am not in touch with my inner self. My mind whirs all the time, trying to meet the next deadline, frustrated I couldn’t note down my oh-so-brilliant-but-not-really thoughts while I stood in the space of Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay. It’s hard to write a stream-of-consciousness, when that specific stream is now from hours ago and my belly is now full of the food I picked up in Chinatown.

Abramović spoke about how we are always thinking — except when we sneeze or when we orgasm — and although we may not be able to shut it off, we might be able to slow it down, even if it’s by doing something as simple as walking very, very, very slowly.

I couldn’t stop thinking. I couldn’t focus. And it made me feel anxious, like what I was doing wasn’t good enough, like I was getting it wrong, like everyone was clued into something that I wasn’t. I worry that this sense of alienation, of just being too thick or too self-absorbed, makes some art projects undemocratic. People don’t like to go places where they feel foolish. I don’t think it’s about work being too challenging, or about a rapidly dumbing audience, people who are too busy constantly receiving information all the time to actually experience the world around them, to be present; that excuse is too easy. Maybe when we don’t get the sense of transcendence some people get, we feel inadequate. We’re all afraid of feeling inadequate, vulnerable. We’re all afraid of being alone with ourselves.

You put your gear in a locker. You are invited to do 11 exercises from the Abramović Method, focusing on your breathing, ridding yourself of negative energy. You don a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. You walk inside of the space – Holy shit, there’s Marina Abramović herself, she is a real person, holy shit, I wish I could pull off all-black that well – and then a stranger takes your hand. You can see the people ahead of you being led along by their person, members of Abramović’s team. The team is wearing all-black, but so is the audience, the subject of this installation, because it’s winter, and the Pier is cold, and black is slimming, and everyone eats carbs in winter.

They take your hand and they walk in step with you. You see people being led to other places — even in a space like this, you still keep an eye on what others are doing: can I mimic them, do they know more than me, are they better at being mindful, I wonder where she got her sweater, will anyone know I’m a phony? I was led into a room and shown how to separate white rice from lentils. But there was also a piece of paper and a pencil, and I didn’t know what to do with those, and I never found out [I was meant to count them]. I’m glad I didn’t have to draw.

I became task-oriented. What was the fastest way to separate these? How long would it take? What system should I use? What if I moved all the lentils out, and then swept the rice to the side? What if I did it one by one, as was demonstrated? Two pieces at a time? Two hands? Or just one finger on one hand? Was it rude to put my elbows on the table? The person next to me was working faster. I tried to keep my eye on what was going on in the entranceway; would someone come to take me somewhere else, or would I end up sitting here for an hour, waiting for something to happen? Did someone deliberately tap the back of my chair? My foot fell asleep. No one came to get me. I watched people being led in. That was my guy, leading someone else in. He wasn’t coming back. I didn’t want to be the first person to leave. Sometimes I’d turn my head and then feel guilty about it because everyone was so absorbed in their own rice and lentil collection. I watched Abramović’s team pace the room. I felt like a schoolgirl again, sitting at a desk in the church hall doing an exam, worried that the people pacing the room knew I was getting the answers wrong. My foot woke up and I stood up.

You wander the rooms freely, watching people slow-motion walk. You watch people staring at red paper blu-tacked to the wall, and blue, and yellow. You stand on a raised platform and close your eyes just like everyone else, only to peek to check if you’re doing it right. Is anyone else’s knee about to give out? Again I was taken by the hand, and led in front of the red paper. I crossed my legs and wondered if my stance was restricting my capacity to be mindful. I tried not to move, but then I moved. I thought about whether or not I had plans for the weekend. I thought about whether or not I was doing it right. I thought about my deadline. I thought about my partner, who doesn’t live here any more. I thought about telling him to check it out in China to see whether an IT major was any better at clearing their head than me. I thought about him, and maybe that was because of the colour red, and the colour of lipstick, and the colour of pink lady apples. Maybe I would’ve thought something else if I was looking at the colour yellow. The people beside me stood up; so did I.

I wondered how much time had passed, and if it really mattered.

You wander past the people sat in chairs, gazing into each other’s eyes. You know if you sat down your eyes would start watering. You’d glance away. Or worse, you’d smile. It’s hard not to smile at someone who is looking right at you. It’s hard not to say ‘Hello’. You experience a quick intimacy with the next person to take your hand, even after you’ve considered just pointedly avoiding eye contact: you give in and smile. He is cute but not too cute. I wonder if he is an artist. I wonder how long he could hold his breath in the exercises. He led me to a bunk. I lay down and he tucked me in tight. It was the closest to sex I’d been in a month. I was lonely. The light breaks through the windows, it is calm, I don’t know whether to roll on my side and take a snooze. I wondered how much time had passed, and if it really mattered.

I could’ve stayed in that bunk indefinitely if it wasn’t for the noise of camera shutters, the self-consciousness that comes from being photographed before you’ve had the chance to reapply lipstick, to smile, to find someone to be photographed with. I felt anxious. I wondered again if I had to wait for someone to get me up. I wondered where on the internet my picture would end up and whether I looked as self-conscious as I felt. Maybe I should have worn a different scarf. If I didn’t get up maybe I wouldn’t get to experience it all, maybe I needed to re-do the breathing exercises, maybe I needed to be still. Someone said, ‘It’s finished,’ and I left the space.

I’m not sure if at any point I felt like I knew myself. I tried to force myself into the moment, to stop my mind from wandering. I tried to concentrate, and then when I failed I reassured myself that there were no wrong answers and there was only this space and these people and quick intimacy and my own thoughts. I had to accept that, and accept that I felt vulnerable and that was okay, and that sometimes you have to be alone.