The Witness History Podcast From the B B C World Service

It's 50 years since a young artist in california did something which would send ripples through the art world for decades to come. Lucy burns reports, it's november nineteenth, 19 71, and one of the most controversial pieces of performance in history is about to get under way. Chris burden was part of a group of young performance artists experimenting with the boundaries between their own bodies and the world around them. He decided that the best way to explore it meant to be shot, was to get himself shot. One of the few pictures of the event shows burdon lurching forward, pale and dazed, clutching his arm. And people sayl what did it feel like