To me the problem is as an audience member here you know what the artist is expecting of you. She is the one putting the idea of violence into their heads by putting weapons there. This is a piece of art, and a good one, not some sort of psychological experiment.

It may not be a good experiment, but I think there's still learnings to be had.

If you give me a gun and say "you can put this to my head if you like, idk" I'm still not going to. Clearly this isn't true of everyone. That people rose to her bait is not what I would have expected.

If a magician invited you on stage to and gave you a gun and told you to point it at their head you probably would though right? The audience here are part of the show, and their role in it. Did the people who did things like cut her think of themselves more as actors in an extreme form of theater or audience members?

I would shoot a magician without much hesitation, assuming it to be a trick. Something in this performance was different, I don't think it was a trick.

Not a trick, but the artist's previous works in this Rhythm series were all about suffering, for instance Rhythm 10 and 5 she cut her self, and Rhythm 2 she took medication to give herself a seizure. If you are doing a series on suffering where you injure yourself, the audience is going to understand their role in the performance.

Right, and that's different than the magician where harm was never expected.

I would have been uncomfortable drawing blood, even if she wasn't, but I'm not surprised the audience got there.

I am quite surprised they put a gun to her head, and that there was any level of discussion/disagreement about it's use.