After learning about Marina Abramovic’s performance, The Artist is Present, in which she sat in a chair all day every day as people waited to look at her, my mind immediately went to a similar public performance done by actor Shia LaBeouf. LaBeouf sat at a small wooden table, wearing a paper bag over his face that said, “I am not famous anymore.” Visitors then sat across the table from him, but no words were exchanged. Instead, LaBeouf would stare at the visitor and respond with total silence to a series of questions, only acknowledging the viewer with a head nod before they left. The media criticized this performance, as LaBeouf had come to be associated with erotic and odd behavior. Further adding to the interesting performance, which he titled #IAMSORRY, LaBeouf claims a woman raped him during this performance. When his girlfriend found out about this and came to confront him, he couldn’t even respond because he was not allowed to talk during this performance. I thought this was an interesting case to point out as it further analyzes the relationship between silent beings. When people are silent, do they resort to physical action, such as LaBeouf’s claim of rape? Do important topics and discussions go away or continue to grow, such as LaBeouf and his girlfriend’s discussion about his rape? To me, performances such as LaBeouf’s clearly show that a lot of unpredictable things can happen when two people simply sit and stare at a each other.
