Video screenshot: a kind of stage with various unidentifiable objects. In the middle a figure kicking a kind of punching bag

Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses

Mike Kelley

  • Year 1999
  • Edition Unlimited edition
  • Material/Technique Single-channel video (color, sound)
  • Length 51' 19''
  • Category Media art
  • Collection Sammlung Goetz, Medienkunst, München

Mike Kelley’s video work Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses explores the role of control, education and manipulation in human behavior. The setting is a cage-like room with sculptural elements that are based on the playroom objects used by the American psychologist Harry Harlow in his famous experiments on the affective behavior of primates. The objects have been enlarged to a human scale and arranged so that they are reminiscent of the abstract stage sets Isamu Noguchi designed for the choreographer Martha Graham in the 1950s. The choreographic sequences performed by two dancers also refer to Graham’s modern dance language. The performers also interact with the sculptures in the space and execute actions based on the primate behavior observed by Harlow.
This video work is related to Kelley’s A Dance Incorporating Movements Derived from Experiments by Harry F. Harlow and Choreographed in the Manner of Martha Graham.

Mike Kelley

271 pages, 150 ill., hardcover.
German/English
2008, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
ISBN 978-3-939894-11-7
€ 25,00

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