Mogens Jacobsen. OECDlab

Statistical numbers are used as tools to manage the world. Tools not only give us the ability to solve tasks, but also form our understanding of these tasks. People meet statistical numbers almost every day; in the media, in the speeches of rulers and politicians, in finance, in business plans and in academic research. Statistics are made, chosen and juxtaposed to support particular beliefs and to substantiate arguments. Statistics are a way of looking at the world. Presented as a translucent window between you and the world – not to be looked at, only to be looked thru. In this exhibition Mogens Jacobsen aims to draw attention to the tool, to scratch the glass and make the window visible.

OECDlab takes inspiration from the title of the text ‘Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World’ by the French sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour. In this article Latour argues that laboratories are built to destabilize the difference between micro and macro levels and laboratories are sources of fresh politics and powers for modifying society. OECDlab is not the control room of the world. OECDlab is a small laboratory for your experimentation. And – to quote Latour – a place where nothing special is produced.

A new work produced in Istanbul at PiST///'s residency program P_RP_R, the OECDlab exhibition is an example of the incisive and bantering works of Mogens Jacobsen in the field of critical art&technology and tangible interfaces. All machines are installed in the lab, looking forward for you to touch, control and experiment!

Mogens Jacobsen
OECDlab