What does it mean to trust someone? Whether you are entrusting someone with your belongings, a part of your body, or ultimately, your life, it is the belief in the reliability of someone. For performance artist, Marina Abramović, it means to put herself in the hands of someone else. Abramović has performed many examples of putting trust into the hands of others, but one that stands out the most to me is entitled “Rest Energy” performed with collaborator, Ulay. The performance piece consisted of Marina Abramović holding the grip of a bow in one hand as Ulay also grips the arrow and string in one hand with one hand. With the bow and arrow pointed towards Abramović’s heart, the two lean back with the weight of their body as they tension the bow
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Something as simple as looking into someone’s eyes is trusting in someone. The conflict lies with the uncomfortable feeling of intrusion we get when our gaze is invaded by another. But letting go of your defense is the only way of building the trust and feeling comfortable. When we were asked to look deep into the eyes of a stranger next to us, our first reaction was of hesitance. We immediately started to feel uncomfortable and had different ways to cope with it. When I started to look into the eyes of the stranger sitting next to me, my first reaction was to giggle and think in my mind that the exercise was silly. Trying to avoid the validity of the exercise gave me comfort from the awkwardness of the intruding fixed stare. But we were able to open up our defenses and allow the intruding force into our comfort zone. However, it was difficult to maintain for one of us because I started to notice that after a while. The gaze of the person across from me was darting from one side of the room to the other, nonverbally signifying “this is uncomfortable, end this!” He lost his inner battle to maintain trust and began to feel uneasy until the 2 minutes were up. We live in a society where our most comfortable place to interact with others is behind the screen of a computer or a cellphone. But even if we take our heads out of the screens, we will insist on remaining at an arm’s
Something as simple as looking into someone’s eyes is trusting in someone. The conflict lies with the uncomfortable feeling of intrusion we get when our gaze is invaded by another. But letting go of your defense is the only way of building the trust and feeling comfortable. When we were asked to look deep into the eyes of a stranger next to us, our first reaction was of hesitance. We immediately started to feel uncomfortable and had different ways to cope with it. When I started to look into the eyes of the stranger sitting next to me, my first reaction was to giggle and think in my mind that the exercise was silly. Trying to avoid the validity of the exercise gave me comfort from the awkwardness of the intruding fixed stare. But we were able to open up our defenses and allow the intruding force into our comfort zone. However, it was difficult to maintain for one of us because I started to notice that after a while. The gaze of the person across from me was darting from one side of the room to the other, nonverbally signifying “this is uncomfortable, end this!” He lost his inner battle to maintain trust and began to feel uneasy until the 2 minutes were up. We live in a society where our most comfortable place to interact with others is behind the screen of a computer or a cellphone. But even if we take our heads out of the screens, we will insist on remaining at an arm’s