Consider Electric Cord Piece, 1967 (remade 2003), in which a doubly male electrical cord snakes across the floor to join two female outlets, and My Last Museum Piece (Flies to Honey), a 2003 reconfiguration of a 1969 project that consists of a seven-foot-diameter inflated clear plastic ball whose inside has been smeared with honey and hosts a swarm of tiny flies feeding from its gooey walls.

Suppose an electrician and a mathematician were reviewing a new product and analyzing the number of shocks that occurred when the product's electric cord was plugged into a socket.

The children, who were then 6 to 14 years old, were seized in July 2001 from their home when they told West of beatings with a fly-swatter handle, a belt and an electric cord that sometimes left marks.