In 2006, the Council of Europe released a report concerning human rights in Denmark. The report was highly critical of parts of the Danish legislation relating to foreigners and of the tone of the Danish debate on immigration. The Danish government began damage control measures a full month before the report was ever released to the public. Mogens Jacobsen takes the final chapter of this report as the point of departure for this work.
At the beginning of the installation, we see a computer submerged in vegetable oil coupled to a galvanic battery that consists of hundreds of potatoes (which happens to be the Danish national food). The electrical power from the network of potatoes drives a software system that suppresses most of the words in that final chapter of the ECRI report which can be seen at an online location. As the potatoes begin to dry out, rot or begin to sprout, the biological battery begins to become less effective at hiding the suppressed text because of it’s reduced power. Gradually we see a slowly uncovered controversial text – an unveiling of a report and it’s conclusions that originally were meant to be quelled.
