De Appel

A series of psychic readings of spaces, commissioned by the artist in an attempt at connecting with the past of domestic or exhibition spaces, despite the limitations of rational discourse. The video is not edited, respecting the actual duration of the performance. In this particular case, the psychic is looking at the past of the De Appel building, which used to accommodate the Jewish bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co.

Produced by De Appel, Amsterdam, while General Idea was in residence there, Test Tube was conceived as a program for television. Presented under the brand "The Color Bar Lounge," a cocktail bar in the mythical 1984 Miss General Idea Pavilion, the program is a hybrid of popular television formats […] and infomercial. […] Advertisements for the bar are placed throughout the program; a loaded word choice, full of double-entendres and innuendo, betrays the influence of both Dadaism and consumerism. This collapse of popular and high culture is central to General Idea's agenda, as Felix Partz observes: "You know, the mass media are like a vast pharmaceutical complex developing new cultural elixirs of an unprecedented intoxication…but art remains a curious and elitist drink. Despite its unique flavor and heady cultural properties, it has never effectively been exploited."