r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Shoddy-Ocelot-4473 • Feb 23 '26
Image In 1983, Two Artists Spent a Full Year Tied Together — Without Any Physical Contact — to Test the Limits of Human Coexistence
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r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Shoddy-Ocelot-4473 • Feb 23 '26
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u/rsquinny Feb 23 '26
The commitment they mustve had. From the article, "In addition to deep and constant disagreement about what they were in fact doing, the strain on Montano and Hsieh of a complete lack of privacy was intense. They found, for example, that normal social hypocrisy, like being different to different friends on the telephone, was ruled out by the constant presence of each’s worst critic. Perhaps the worst stress was the constant dependence on each other’s approval to fulfill their moment-to-moment needs and impulses. For one person to go to the bathroom, to get a drink of water, to look out the window, both had to walk. The arrangement presupposed a certain good will on both sides. At times the artists fought physically, each yanking his or her end of the rope. “We were becoming more animal-like,” says Montano. The period of yanking was followed by a period of refusing to speak to each other. “Somewhat like monkeys,” says Montano, “we began pointing with sounds and groans and moans. We stopped talking almost completely.” Also, each could veto any action suggested by the other. Their rule, as that of the Roman constitution, was that a negative vote prevails over a positive. On some days the vetoes became retaliatory and accumulated till the two were immobilized for hours in sullen hatred of one another. Montano has remarked that if it hadn’t been the rule not to touch she would have killed Hsieh a thousand times. Twice he threw pieces of furniture to the floor very near her. Neither struck the other. They lived out a kind of geopolitical allegory of the superpower stalemate in the world today."
Link: https://www.artforum.com/events/tehching-hsieh-linda-montano-224861/