TEST BED: a Modern Abaton is an installation, an exhibition, and a series of fourteen public performances and dialogues on the interaction of space, the slumbering body, and the accessories of sleep.

TEST BED, the installation, transforms the gallery into a modern abaton, a space the ancient Greeks dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, and devoted to collective therapeutic sleep and prophetic dreaming. TEST BED encourages visitors to engage in self-directed as well as collective repose; to recline, nap, or daydream utilizing “soft tools” – cushions, pillows, headrests, etc. – that are hung on the walls and scattered on the felted gallery floor.

TEST BED performances and events explore sleep topics whose speakers and participants represent a wide range of disciplines including product design, interior design, lighting design, anthropology, psychology, art and performance art, choreography, and folklore, as well as inventors and futurists.

Organized by:

Natalie Fizer & Emily Stevenson, co-founders of Pillow Culture

Supported by:

MFA Interior Design, Parsons School of Design, The New School

Opening performance:

90 Minute Cycle
Saturday, February 17, 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

John Roach, Parsons faculty and artist, has created a new work entitled 90 Minute Cycle, an 8-channel sound work that moves through four stages corresponding to those in an average sleep cycle: N1, N2, N3, and REM. All sound sources used to create the piece were determined by the 70 responses to a survey that asked participants “What sounds help you sleep? What sounds suggest sleep to you?” The structure uses the following characteristics of the four stages to guide the editing process.