With the exhibition Milk Plus, Jens Settergren examines in a magnificent and sensory-saturated video installation the collective images linked to the human body and its reproduction, optimization and commercialization in our time.

With an interest in power and the imaginary world of modern society in all that it entails of high technology and constant improvement, Settergren presents a multi-channel video installation that takes the form of a surreal milk advertisement. In a hypnotizing and sensory-stimulating way, the work transports the audience into a separate and synthetic universe, where milk possesses a fascinating and transformative power beyond the usual.

In Milk Plus, the pervasive presence of milk is essential as it has a stream of strong and opposing connotations attached to it in our society and language. Milk evokes associations with nourishment and connection both physically and psychologically between mother and child. Here, milk is associated with innocence and purity. At the same time, milk is used as a metaphor for material wealth and our economies designed to “milk” every resource. In Milk Plus, this takes shape in Settergren’s imagery, when the advertising-like velvety soft and chalk-white milk flows in slow-motion before our gaze, and is sometimes animated in a creation-mythological manner to possess its own agency. The milk is both tempting, but also disturbing in view of the advertising’s goal of increased consumption, when magical worlds are created in which our imagination and desire are not limited.