An 1879 oil painting by Édouard Manet, Chez le Père Lathuille, is perhaps one of the most famous portrayals of attraction, restrained interaction between a couple though it may be. Bodies turning towards each other at a restaurant table for two — ignorant to the proprietor’s enquiring look over their shoulders — the man holds the back of the woman’s chair and her gaze at once. It is evident desire has moved into attraction. Words spoken to express our desire or attraction to each other can all too often sound alike; our bodies, however, will tell us all too clearly the difference.   

To commemorate Valentine’s Day in 2017, Harvard University published a paper that illuminated the science behind the effects attraction has on our body. Similar but distinct from desire — which can be experienced simultaneously, but likewise without — attraction is not the meeting of eyes from across the room, but that intoxicating phenomenon after, when two have moved towards each other and find pleasure in each other’s presence.

Levels of adrenaline and cortisol — the stress hormone  — increase with an active participation in hatred, and are most commonly associated with the ‘fight or flight’ response; an acute stress response triggered by encountering a perceived threat. It is likely in this agitated state that poor decisions are made; that you would say or do things that would never be inspired by amorous or neutrally-perceived company. As the former couple exchanges barbed words aimed to maim, hitting where it hurts most, Driver’s character punches a hole in his apartment’s wall; the visual allegory of a broken home. More than enemies, it’s the person who was supposed to love us, but kept us from the realisation of ourselves that we hate most.  

Love, unlike attraction and hatred, is not as easily discerned by physical cues. Produced by the hypothalamus and released in large quantities during sex, breastfeeding, and childbirth, oxytocin creates a deep emotional connection with those for whom we already have an affection for, and is the best explanation physiology gives us for the presence of love. As attraction grows and wanes throughout a shared life, oxytocin reaffirms our commitment to each other. However, without obvious outward physical signs to indicate levels of the hormone, we stumble through gestures, and confuse the signs of attraction for attachment. For this reason, there is perhaps no other experience we desire verbally articulated more than love; even more so when we believe that love has possibly turned to hate.  

Ulay’s surprise appearance at Marina Abramović’s performance at the Musuem of Modern Art in New York, The Artist is Present, illuminates without words whether love can still exist where there has been hatred. It took place more than twenty years after the former lovers and artistic collaborators’ final farewell — an appropriately epic work of performance art that saw them traverse the Great Wall of China from either end, meeting in the middle only to say goodbye.