Marina Abramović - How we in the Balkans kill rats

From "The Star" movie (1999). This video was a piece of "Balkan Baroque" installation in the Venice Biennale 1997, that was Marina Abramović awared the Gold Lion Award.

"I´ d like to tell you a story of how we in the Balkans kill rats.
We have a method of transforming the rat into a wolf; we make a wolf rat.
But before I explain this method I´ d like to tell you something about rats themselves.
First of all, rats consume large quantities of food, sometimes double the weight of their own bodies.
Their front teeth never stop growing and they have to be ground constantly otherwise they risk suffocation.


Rats take good care of their families.
They will never kill or eat the members of their own family.
They are extremely intelligent.
Einstein once said: "If the rat were 20 kilos heavier it would definitely be the ruler of the world".
If you put a plate of food and poison in front of a hole the rat will sense it and not eat.

To catch the rats you have to fill all their holes with water, leaving only one open. In this way you can catch 35 to 45 rats.
You have to make sure that you choose only the males.
You put them in a cage and give them only water to drink.
After a while they start to get hungry, their front teeth start growing and even though, normally, they would not kill members of their own tribe, since they risk suffocation they are forced to kill the weak one in the cage.
And then another weak one, another weak one, and another weak one.
They go on until only the strongest and most superior rat of them all is left in the cage.
Now the rat catcher continues to give the rat water.
At this point timing is extremely important.
The rat´ s teeth are growing. When the rat catcher sees that there is only half an hour left before the rat will suffocate he opens the cage, takes a knife, removes the rat´ s eyes and lets it go.
Now the rat is nervous, outraged and in a panic. He faces his own death and runs into the rat hole and kills every rat that comes his way. Until he comes across the rat who is stronger and superior to him.
This rat kills him.

This is how we make the wolf rat in the Balkans."

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Marina
• Abramović
• performance
• videoperformance
• venice
• biennale
• balkan
• baroque

[thealanyabuyukotel]

i like to tell you a story...how we in Turkey kill the rats...we are going to a shop and buying rat poison.after the rats are poisoned they are trembling and dying.(now im taking my underwear off and begin to dance

[jovanovm]

This is brilliant! If we are "wild" in the Balkans, as the media said in 1999, let us show you exactly what wild is. What eugenics and Social Darwinism are (what Marina describes here - both are certainly not Balkan inventions). How capitalism works. How individuality works. What you are afraid of, Eumerica, what you project on us, is are fears about your own society. What Marina says here, I think, is that we are all both rats and people at the same time.

[brightstripes420]

@haltoloverxxx are you sure? i live in the civilized part of the United States, and people sure do act like rats.

[jovanovm]

@hatloverxxx

People in the "civilized" world do act like rats. From the US in the Philippines to Iraq, from Western-educated "leaders" in Liberia to concentration "asylym seekers' centers" in southern Italy and eastern Greece. From Oakland to London through Cairo. The only thing specific about the "Serb nationalist cult" post-Communism is the name. The ideology is the same everywhere - Jobbik, HSP, Gingrich, Le Pen. the Muslim Brotherhood, Vishva Hindu Pariṣad..

[hatloverxxx]

@jovanovm People in the civilised world don't act like rats.

[hatloverxxx]

@PigeonMal Great insight

[hatloverxxx]

@soschwerzufinden It describes the new Serb nationalist cult, post-Communism

[FliegendeHollaender]

@Milkyiscolossal

yeah, we have cool accents though, cannot be denied.

[soschwerzufinden]

the ontology of killing: a very smart way to describe how the torture of a "tribe" can provoke "blind" aggression. you imprinson them, let them die of hunger, take their eyesight and afterwards let them free...so you can enjoy the game of disorientation and the pure nature of prime instinct. a cruel and kinky way of symbolism but it works.

[1960markN]

(after being starved and having his eyes poked out) ....."now, the rat is nervous....."

[DoubleAssClown]

@jovanovm fag.

[tvb126]

@csaszarhuni WOW thanks!!!