Test Tube

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."

• Release date
• January 1, 1979
• Runtime
• 28 min
• Genres
• TV Movie
• Director
• General Idea

Cast

A

AA Bronson Himself

F

Felix Partz Himself

J

Jorge Zontal Himself Marina Abramović Titus Muizelaar

W

Wies Smals