Artist: Maja Malou Lyse
Curated by Chus Martínez
Commissioned by Danish Arts Foundation

 

Technical Coordination

 

The Danish Pavilion unveils Maja Malou Lyse’s Things To Come, exploring how the pornographic image, science and fiction intersect with human reproductive futures

The exhibition takes its title from the 1936 science-fiction film Things to Come, based on H. G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, a visionary work speculating on future technologies, social structures, and the fate of humanity. Drawing this speculative impulse into the present, the artist engages with recent scientific studies suggesting that exposure to virtual sexual stimuli can measurably increase sperm motility. This finding foregrounds a striking proposition: that image consumption does not merely influence imagination or ideology, but enters directly into the biological realm.

Set against the backdrop of a global decline in male fertility—widely linked to environmental conditions, lifestyle, and technological exposure—Things To Come investigates the paradoxical role of contemporary media as both toxin and antidote.

“Imagine the surprise of Maja Malou Lyse upon learning that viewing pornography through VR technology may enhance male fertility by as much as 50%, as recent studies suggest. Fertility, futurity, and pornography thus become deeply entangled. Lyse has conceived a paradoxical environment that suggests we are not at the end of the image, but at the beginning of a new world in which images persist, yet their meaning, function, and credibility are fundamentally transformed. In her work, images no longer describe reality; they operate within it. They function as affective technologies: they produce sensations, they produce time, they produce the species. They are rehearsals for possible futures rather than records of the present”

– Chus Martínez, curator

 

The exhibition brings together two works: the film Things To Come, developed in collaboration with DIS (Marco Roso, Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, and David Toro), and the installation Stars in My Pocket.

The architecture of the pavilion has been conceived in collaboration with Common Accounts. The production has been curated by M+B Studio.

 

Commissioner: Danish Arts Foundation
Curator: Chus Martínez
Artist: Maja Malou Lyse
Exhibition Design: Common Accounts
Graphic Design: Studio Claus Due
Technical Coordination: M+B Studio
Funded by: Danish Arts Foundation

 

Photo Credits:
Installation Images, Maja Malou Lyse, DIS, Things to Come, 2026©UgoCarmeni
Maja Malou Lyse, DIS, Things to Come, Photography by Zoe Chait