JENS SETTERGREN ^DK

A baby as an unspoiled creature. From 3D model to living thing. Experience the transformation through a lenticular print.

Is a newborn baby a human being that hasn’t been shaped by the norms of society yet? And how can we imagine the future that lies ahead of the youngest citizens of society?

These is the types of question that Jens Settergren’s artworks at Roskilde Festival pose.

Settergren has made a series of lenticular prints presenting a fetus which transforms as you pass by. It morphs between an image showing the baby as a digital grid and an image showing the baby “rendered” in flesh and blood. By showing the baby as both a digital being and a non-gendered human, Settergren points to the foetus as an image of a radical future potentiality.

With its cold and commercial aesthetics, the work – entitled Prototype – could be read as an obscure commercial for the child as a product that can be optimised in accordance with consumer demands. With its sci-fi imagery, Prototype investigates ideas of biology, biotechnology and the digital sphere and lets festival-goers reflect on the conditions of life in the future.

Jens Settergren (b. 1989) graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2016. In his artistic practice, Settergren often works with collective fantasies, science fiction and contemporary mythologies. He is an interdisciplinary artist who works with both sculptures, installations and video works. Settergren's works typically put everyday objects, 3D figures and commercial images in an unfamiliar context. By doing so he investigates underlying meanings encoded in images, objects and language.

Jens Settergren is presented in collaboration with the Bikuben Foundation. He is a part of the foundation's studio programme which focuses on artistic development.

Other artists in the studio programme are Marie Munk and Linda Lamignan.