In the darkened gallery space, Oskar Jakobsen’s installation Intelligo creates a highly specific environment – that of a hothouse for growing funghi. Organic agriculture using artificial lighting, nutrient solutions and computer controlled technologies, where things can be grown anywhere, is one of the trends of our time. Jakobsen’s grow-room is hi-tech in style with a compelling aesthetic: from the openings in aluminum boxes hung from the ceiling grow exquisite sporocarps of oyster mushrooms. Naturally, this too is controlled by computer. But what is important, the infusion fed by a system of tubes placed under the ceiling includes, apart from nutrients and water also works of literature translated into a data stream. Their titles appear on the labels of the plastic containers stored in a glass refrigerator, ready for use. Jakobsen’s work thus combines contemporary scientific research and experiments with a speculative approach, in order to address the current issues of the blurring lines between nature and technology, which until recently had been seen as strictly separate. In doing so he also tackles the issue of state-of-the-art technologies expanding the limitations of the human body, an issue termed “transhuman”, which poses a number of ethical problems for contemporary society.
