Anna Ehrenstein
The Balkanization of the Cloud, 2022
Anna Ehrenstein, The Hypnotization of the Cloud, 2022, Video still, Courtesy the artist and OFFICE IMPART, Berlin
Anna Ehrenstein’s (*1993) multimedia, research- and mediation-based practice raises questions about the relationship between humans and objects in the digital age. Departing from reflections on structures relating to collectivity, she examines cultures of networking, diasporic narratives, the idea of communal unlearning and the redistribution of resources.
Anna Ehrenstein – audio guide in plain language
In her installation the artist refers to the concept of the cloud – with its immaterial and post-national connotations – and highlights the existing political latitude of governmental actors. To this end, she satirically appropriates the concept of balkanization, which as third-party geographical designation associates her home region with the disintegration of large entities into smaller ones, chaos and brutality. The video work The Nationstate as Instagram Influencer combines two different representations of state-sponsored nationalism on the internet, one of which was conceived by Jonathan Omer Mizrahi (*1993, Tel Aviv, IL) and the other by Ehrenstein herself. In The Hypnotization of the Cloud, she uses virtual reality hypnosis to try to exorcise these nationalist ideas from the viewers. For preparation, Ehrenstein trained as a hypnotherapist; her diploma is also part of the installation.