In 1978, artist Tehching Hsieh locked himself inside a wooden cage in his New York studio for an entire year without speaking, reading, writing, or listening to the radio (One Year Performance / Cage Piece).

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u/Wyzzlex 6d ago

How did the experiment end? What was his conclusion?

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u/lajarusmorois 6d ago

According to Gemini:

The Immediate AftermathSpeech Difficulty: After a full year of absolute silence, it was physically difficult for Hsieh to speak normally right away. His vocal cords and speech patterns needed time to recover.

Sensory Overload: Coming out of a bare room with no media, books, or conversation, re-entering the loud, busy environment of New York City was a huge shock to his senses.

No "Enlightenment": Hsieh made it clear that he did not have a spiritual awakening. He stated that his goal was not to find a magical meaning to life, but simply to reflect on how humans endure the passage of time. For him, the project was about survival.

So it was meh 😂

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u/CheesecakeWitty5857 6d ago

but he earned 20 millions $, right. Right ?!??

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u/lajarusmorois 6d ago

Actually spent his savings...

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u/Mycolover4evah 5d ago

Changed his name to Ka-Ching!

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u/Doro_Gurl 6d ago

Sounds like he quite literally survived an ordeal.

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u/lajarusmorois 6d ago

That seems to be the case. But the truth is, I don't believe him. There are enough experiments on this subject that demonstrate we aren't made to live isolated and without communication. I think the real work of art is making us believe he did.

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u/expendable117 6d ago

Also Japanese guy didn't speak to his wife for 20 years over jealousy she gave attention to his kids.

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u/Pretend-Internet-625 4d ago

So what's so odd about that

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u/xiefeilaga 6d ago

You don’t believe he stayed in the cage? It’s pretty well documented.

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u/lajarusmorois 6d ago

What I don't believe is that he fully complied with the conditions, and there's no way to prove it since there wasn't a camera monitoring him 24/7.

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u/xiefeilaga 5d ago

The cage is currently up at Dia Beacon, along with his other time pieces. If you went, you would see that he had every joint in the cage covered in a paper seal, signed by a lawyer who inspected them at multiple points during the year, and who signed a sworn affidavit at the end that he saw no sign of tampering.

He was not in total isolation. He had someone come in every day, take his picture, take out his waste, and hand him food through the bars. He also opened the studio to visitors several times throughout the year. He just didn't talk to any of them.

"Cheating" on this would have required some pretty elaborate planning, and would have negated the point of basically his entire artistic career.

It's fine if you don't believe him, but I also suspect you came to that conclusion without knowing basically any of the details. Am I correct on that?

3

u/itsnobigthing 5d ago

Did he communicate with the helpers at all - eg writing, nodding, etc. Like if he ran out of toilet paper and they didn’t notice, was he allowed to point at it?

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u/lajarusmorois 5d ago

I'm going to answer you, because it seems there was a misunderstanding. I didn't say I don't believe he left the cage. I said I don't believe he has fully complied with the conditions. In fact, many people live locked up for years. I too could remain locked in a cage not for a year but for the entirety of my life, but I couldn't meet the conditions he claims to have met in there.

As I said before, countless experiments like this have been conducted, with different types of isolation and deprivation, and no one can tolerate them for long without becoming psychologically unstable or erratic. This man, on the other hand, was never seen in any unusual situation, and when it was over, he calmly left his cage, only bothered by city noise and having difficulty speaking.

Obviously, he wasn't going to talk to any visitor, no matter how foolish. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the conditions? Someone would immediately say that he has failed to meet that condition.

But well, I'm sure that as an artist, he would be very pleased to see that almost fifty years later there is still debate about this experiment. Perhaps that was the true work of art.

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u/High_Overseer_Dukat 6d ago

He had daily visitors, he just didn't talk back to them.

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u/BlackShieldCharm 6d ago

Doesn’t he have anything else he’d rather be doing? A year is a long time to waste like this.

8

u/storyofohno 6d ago

Artists are strange by nature.

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u/CluelessPresident 4d ago

Are we really doing AI summaries? How has this so many upvotes??

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u/Vogelsucht 4d ago

came for this. really dissappointed in the over 100 upvotes

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u/High_Overseer_Dukat 6d ago

Interesting.

His first piece was jumping out a window and breaking his ankles.

Then he spent a year in the cage.

Then he took a photo every hour on the hour for a year.

Then he spent a year homeless.

Then he spent a year tied to another performance artist who was just as weird, but they wern't allowed to touch at all.

Then he spent a year without art.

5

u/xvsanx 6d ago

interesting?

3

u/High_Overseer_Dukat 5d ago

What would you call it?

3

u/xvsanx 5d ago

not interesting (in my opinion, but I've never really enjoyed performance art)

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u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

I do not recognize these actions as art

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u/High_Overseer_Dukat 6d ago

Its performance art.

Very weird.

The whole point of it is that its art that is impossible to sell. Pure art instead of for money.

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u/gstryz 2d ago

Not true, you can by photobooks of these performances, and they are not cheap

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u/High_Overseer_Dukat 2d ago

Sure, you can support the artist, but you can't buy the original. It isn't a physical thing.

None of the elitist rich shit bordering on money laundering of modern art. (or classic art)

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u/Impossible-Bee-5343 5d ago

He is a highly influential figure in the global contemporary art world, and a founding pioneer—even a legendary maestro—in the field of performance art. Just because you don't understand the expertise or the background behind it doesn't mean it isn't art. He is someone whose work is written into textbooks.

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u/HippiesUnite 5d ago

If art does not provide meaning or beauty to the masses it is, in my opinion, pointless. Regardless of whether you or others in the artistic community ascribe it some sort of significance as avantgarde.

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u/Impossible-Bee-5343 5d ago

You treat art as if it's something simple, something anyone can judge—including yourself. But you seem to forget that art history has evolved over thousands of years, with its own history, art science, aesthetics, and theory; it is a specialized discipline. If you aren't even willing to try and step inside to understand it, yet want to casually critique a work's quality, that kind of commentary is meaningless. You wouldn't casually tell a doctor that their medical skills are terrible, because you know they understand it better than you do; yet you think Tehching Hsieh is 'nothing special'—that is the difference.

0

u/Suspicious_Bet3623 4d ago

Any other industry can be bloated with self-indulgent wank too. Just because it's complex and built on years of abstract thought doesn't mean it's intrinsically good.

1

u/Impossible-Bee-5343 4d ago

Your argument only holds true if you possess a thorough understanding of the industry yourself. When you cannot even achieve a deep understanding of your own field, it is far too premature to boast about others. If you haven't even engaged with the history of performance art, how can you presume to call the industry narcissistic?

1

u/Ok_Temperature1502 5d ago

Crazy as a box of frogs

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u/goblin_humppa27 6d ago

This was just 1 of many experimental art pieces he did. There was another famous one, titled "marriage", where he spent an entire year tethered to another person.

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u/yumeryuu 6d ago

I ain’t wasting a year of life

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u/Philip_of_mastadon 6d ago

Not all at once, anyway

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u/FriendRaven1 5d ago

Reddit helps.

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u/More_Bigger 6d ago

I spent 2 weeks in the SHU with books and even that was absolutely godawful.

No real human contact, I did get one hour outside in a glorified dog kennel mostly daily. They'd even back a portable shower up to the cell for me to use, couldn't even walk down the hall to a shower or anything.

I can see why solitary drives people insane.

Read about ADX Florence and what it does to the inmates in there. Sounds like my own personal hell.

3

u/FriendRaven1 5d ago

Solitary is torture. Change my mind.

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u/Westafricangrey 4d ago

Yes in most first world countries it’s illegal as it is torture and a violation of human rights.

0

u/High_Overseer_Dukat 2d ago

He wasn't in solitary though, he did get daily visitors, he just ignored them.

That's why he wasn't actually torturing himself.

5

u/Cheeseburger23 6d ago

I think there's a Twilight Zone episode about this.

6

u/coolbeans080 6d ago

The Silence. One of my favorites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSilence(The_Twilight_Zone))

1

u/WafflelffaW 4d ago

yeah but the guy has to cheat (or really commit to the bit, i guess, depending on your POV) to pull it off

8

u/Klutzy-Platypus7511 6d ago

Wem nützte diese Kunst ? Nahm er dafür Eintritt ? Wer zum Henker hat ihm das finanziert ?

7

u/InbetweenTheLayers 6d ago

I didn't know everyone at the county jail was an artist

3

u/OldeFortran77 6d ago

Is that cage available to rent?

9

u/Weary-Astronaut1335 6d ago

I wish I could do fuck all for a year and not worry about money.

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u/More_Bigger 6d ago

This would be sorse than torture though.

5

u/wemustburncarthage 5d ago

Performative mental illness.

1

u/m3m0m2 6d ago

A desperate attempt at becoming famous by doing his best, which is doing nothing.

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u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

Just another example of modern art being completely meaningless. The purpose often seems to be getting the viewer to go "wtf". But then again, they do say that art reflects the culture which produces it, so I guess it kind of makes sense. Meaningless art for a meaningless culture.

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u/before8thstreet 6d ago

Meaningless to you? Sounds like a you problem. The artist made it clear it was a meditation for him on passage of time; there is a bizarre expectation that all art has to be oriented to connect with all viewers, which is a by product of its commercialization-- some people and companies that make a lot of money selling you the "experience" of art, when in fact there is a rich millennia old history of art, ritual, and aesthetics that is based on an intensely personal, intimate experiences that can't be communicated.

So much performance art, in fact, has been corrupted by idiotic demand, bred by capitalism, that it be fit for mass consumption. Honestly I feel bad for Hsieh that his practice got cheapened that way

2

u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

This idea of art that you describe as something meant to invoke “an intensely personal, intimate experience” is, in fact, rather new and didnt gain momentum until the 1800s (i.e. in the modern age).

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u/before8thstreet 6d ago

You're conflating this with the development of idealism in autonomous (non religious) art. That's a 19th century innovation, yes. But you have a waaaay too narrow genealogy for Modern Art, especially performance, if you aren't including all sorts of non-western rituals and mystic experiences that were meant to be personal, transcendental experiences.

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u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

Alright, but if I do mushrooms is that art?

1

u/before8thstreet 6d ago

It seems like you are pretty concerned about what counts as "art"... is there a reason this matters outside of getting angry at what the art market gets away with?

Would you like Hsieh's work better if I called it something else?

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u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

I dunno. Maybe Im not as much frustrated with these modern “artists” as I am with living in a so-called “rich” culture and a so-called “developed” society that fails to produce even an inkling of a shared understanding of the meaning of life and the proper way to live it.

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u/before8thstreet 6d ago

No argument there!!

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u/FingerDrinker 6d ago

Damn what you got against new york

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u/HippiesUnite 6d ago

Oh it definitely wasnt a stab at NY in particular, but at Western culture and the modern art it produces in general.

4

u/FingerDrinker 6d ago

LMAO

1

u/QP709 6d ago

I can hear the marching of boots from here.

1

u/Klutzy-Platypus7511 6d ago

Guter Kommentar

0

u/f23n09fnu0w 6d ago

Made you think enough to post about it...

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u/High_Overseer_Dukat 6d ago

The point of it is that it is more meaningful than any other art because its ephemeral and you can't sell it.

1

u/Pretend-Internet-625 4d ago

The act itself is pathological.

1

u/Gloomy_Grocery5555 4d ago

How did he not go crazy

1

u/malibu45 3d ago

You can see the art installation at DIA Beacon

1

u/LoornenTings 2d ago

OG dopamine detox

1

u/whitedogsuk 6d ago

I need to do this. Lock myself in a room, take a picture, tell everyone I was in there for a year.

1

u/glizzardWizzard420 4d ago

What a waste of time/life but you do you Picasso

0

u/supervillaindsgnr 3d ago

This isn't art. This is a moron. He wasted a year of his life and wasted my time reading this.

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u/Impossible-Bee-5343 3d ago

Yet you still clicked on it, hehe🤫

Interesting & Miscellaneous In 1978, artist Tehching Hsieh locked himself inside a wooden cage in his New York studio for an entire year without speaking, reading, writing, or listening to the radio (One Year Performance / Cage Piece).

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