Buzz
The definition of ‘art’ has undergone significant transformation over the centuries. Three hundred years ago, it was all about tree paintings. A hundred years ago, it was about geometric squares. Today, it’s all about ‘madness’. Since the emergence of pop art and postmodernism, art has evolved from being a medium for the tortured artist to a playground for mad scientists. How else can you explain bizarre social experiments like…?
8. The Suicide Sculpture
You could easily write an entire article titled '10 Reasons Chris Burden Was Crazier Than a Shithouse Rat' and still have plenty more to add. For instance, he once asked a friend to shoot him with a rifle (and, of course, the ‘friend’ complied); in another wild act, he nailed himself to his car—a stunt so uniquely insane that David Bowie wrote a song about it.
But the absolute craziest stunt he ever pulled was in 1975. Curious to see when an audience might intervene, he lay under a glass sheet next to a clock, completely motionless. His plan was to stay still until someone in the gallery noticed and tried to help him, but here's the twist: no one did. Even after Burden had soiled himself and gone almost two days without water, people simply nodded and carried on. The only reason his dried-out body isn't still lying there today is that a gallery staff member grew concerned and placed a glass of water next to him—at which point Burden finally snapped and ended the performance.
7. Visual LSD
Most people hearing the words ‘video art’ would instinctively run for the hills, but Tony Conrad’s work is a whole different beast. While it may not be *The Godfather*, or even *Godfather Part III*, it does something that no mainstream blockbuster would dare to do: it gives you hallucinations like an acid trip.
You read that correctly: the sole purpose of his 1966 film *The Flicker* was to plunge viewers into a state of advanced schizophrenia (and for the love of all that’s holy, DO NOT click that link if you suffer from epilepsy). Featuring nothing but flickering lights in a darkened room, the experience was so trippy it acted like visual LSD, inducing wild hallucinations. Naturally, in the psychedelic 60s, people went wild for it—leading to countless imitators, including Paul Shartis' *TOUCHING*, which took it a step further by messing with your hearing as well.
6. Public Masochism
If you need definitive proof that humanity is psychologically doomed, look no further than Marina Abramovic's *Rhythm 0*. In 1974, Abramovic performed a piece where she sat motionless in a chair, accompanied by a sign telling the audience they were free to do anything they wanted to her. To make it clear she meant ‘anything’, she had a table next to her filled with items like whips, scalpels, scissors, and a loaded gun.
Here’s where it gets truly terrifying: the audience dove into the madness without hesitation. And I mean *fully*—over the course of six hours, they stripped her of her clothes, shoved rose thorns into her stomach, cut her, and even held the loaded gun to her head. It was a parade of sadism so extreme it could have been a scene from an Eli Roth movie, not an art gallery. The performance finally ended when Abramovic suddenly stood up, at which point her tormentors did exactly what every challenged bully does—they fled like terrified schoolchildren.
5. Tempting the Internet #1
Given what we know about the internet, it's safe to assume the last thing anyone would want to do is plug themselves into it—unless, of course, they were looking to spend eternity as the plaything of ruthless teenagers on 4Chan. Yet, in 1995, performance artist Stelarc did just that. He inserted electrodes into his muscles and connected himself to a network that allowed people in Amsterdam, Paris, or Helsinki to control his movements from afar. With the push of a button, they could make his limbs spasm or even move independently of his will. Surprisingly, participants didn’t take this opportunity to make him punch himself in the groin or do the Gangnam Style for hours. Stelarc not only survived but enjoyed it so much he repeated the entire performance a second time.
4. Tempting the Internet #2
Of course, the internet of 1995 was a far cry from the behemoth we deal with today—something that artist Wafaa Bilal learned the hard way. In 2007, he locked himself in an empty room at an art gallery for an entire month, surviving only on whatever visitors chose to donate. But Bilal didn’t stop there. He also installed a paintball gun in the room, which could be controlled remotely over the internet.
It’s not hard to guess what happened next: after the story went viral on Digg, about 60,000 people stormed the site and unleashed a torrent of fluorescent yellow paint on the artist. For the next ten days, Bilal was basically under a constant barrage—especially when some hackers set the paintball gun to fire automatically. By the end of it all, he had been shot at countless times, with around 40,000 hits—about once every minute for a full 30 days.
3. Ruling a City
All these entries explore the fusion of life and art until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. But none achieve this blending quite like the life of Antanas Mockus.
To start, Mockus is primarily known as a politician. But he has often referred to himself as an artist, and his actions suggest he’s not just using the term to impress women. In 1993, when confronted by a rowdy lecture hall full of students, he famously dropped his pants and mooned them to grab their attention—later explaining that showing his bare butt was ‘a part of the resources which an artist can use.’ But even his pantless provocations pale in comparison to the time he ran for mayor of Bogotá—and won. Twice.
Read that again: for nearly six years, Colombia’s largest city was governed by a man who dedicated his life to 'artistic pranks'. During his first campaign, Mockus dressed up as Superman and ran around 'fighting crime'. Once in office, he hired 420 street mimes to direct traffic, appeared on TV to explain policies while naked and showering, handed out 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' cards to 350,000 citizens so he could gauge their happiness, and created a group of elite taxi drivers known as 'the Knights of the Zebra'. And the people loved it: each of his bold moves had a purpose, a message—a way to improve the city and its people's lives. Throughout his tenure, his stunts grew more audacious, yet crime rates dropped (LINK 11), traffic deaths were cut in half, and tax revenues soared. In the end, this mad artist used his medium to make life measurably better for hundreds of thousands. So yeah, despite everything else on this list, creating ridiculous art doesn’t always mean it’s a ridiculous idea.
2. Sleeping Beauty
Last year, a Ukrainian artist conducted one of the most bizarre social experiments ever. At the National Art Museum in Kiev, five young women took turns lying on a bed with their eyes closed while visitors waited in line to kiss them. If that sounds strange enough, here’s the twist: if any of the women opened their eyes while being kissed, they were contractually obligated to marry the Ukrainian gentleman doing the kissing.
Imagine that for a moment: not only were there enough people in Ukraine willing to engage in a kiss with an unconscious woman to make this project possible, but there were enough women willing to take the risk of opening their eyes to find Ukrainian Danny DeVito leaning over them, grinning. In the end, the experiment took an unexpected turn when one of the sleeping beauties opened her eyes to find a female kisser.
1. The Flying Man
There are a few experiments you should probably try when you're still a kid—like discovering if you, alone in all of human history, have the ability to fly. But Yves Klein took one look at conventional wisdom and thought, 'Why not?' In 1960, the conceptual artist climbed out of his second-floor window and dove headfirst—something that sounds even more absurd when you learn it was intended as a critique of NASA's lunar exploration. At the time, Yves famously claimed that his leap was meant to demonstrate his capacity for unaided lunar travel—in other words, to miss the ground entirely and soar into the sky. Was it a success? Well, you can probably guess the outcome.
