Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses was produced for inclusion in the architecturally scaled sculpture of the same title. Measuring roughly 18 °- 7.5 meters, the structure is a large steel cagelike room with an overhead observation ramp. The room contains sculptural elements derived from the playroom objects used in Harry Harlow's famous experiments with primate affection conducted in the 1960s. These objects have been enlarged to human scale and arranged in such a way as to evoke the abstract sets designed in the 1950s by Isamu Noguchi for the American choreographer Martha Graham. The videotape documents a dance piece done in collaboration with choreographer Anita Pace.1 The dance was performed on the same set, but was videotaped against a seamless white backdrop. The spatial ambiguity of this image contrasts sharply with the steel room the set now occupies. This videotape is incorporated into the sculpture as a life-size projection on a Plexiglas wall, which is mirrored by a clear picture window of the same dimensions framing the empty set. [...]

Mike Kelley


Catalogue excerpt
fast forward 2. The Power of Motion
Media Art Sammlung Goetz
Editors: Ingvild Goetz and Stephan Urbaschek
Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz, 2010

Mike Kelley, Woods Group, 2005
4-Kanal-Video-Installation
Installationsansicht ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst
Courtesy Sammlung Goetz
© Mike Kelley
Foto: ONUK


Mike Kelley, Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses, 1999
Single-channel video (projection or monitor), color, without sound
Unlimited edition
51' 19"


Mike Kelley, A Dance Incorporating Movements Derived from Experiments by Harry F. Harlow and choreographed in the manner of Martha Graham, 1999
Single-channel video (projection or monitor), black and white, without sound
Unlimited edition
29' 44"