Anna Barnaföldi
Minimal Act for Democracy

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In her four-part video installation, Anna Barnaföldi scales the visibility of democratic action. The media artist asks when and how democracy is expressed and becomes tangible. The first space-consuming installation shows a projection on several levels. On cardboard signs, which often concisely state the reason for the protest at demonstrations or make a demand visible, the media artist projects stock photographs of rallies and assemblies that have taken place in the last year. The photographs are set in motion and thus interact with the expressed opinions. The signs echo thoughts from interviews conducted with voters on the day of the election, reflecting their hopes and fears.

For her second installation, Barnaföldi chooses a bowl-shaped glass in which the parties currently sitting in the European Parliament are represented by means of coloured paper dots. In the background of the confetti-like accumulation, the ideologies of the parties from 27 countries in the EU Parliament run across a screen and, as it were, fall into the glass (for example: liberal, Christian or green). In contrast to the frequently used form of representation of a democratically elected parliament, namely the static form of a horseshoe, this representation chosen by Barnaföldi has a dynamic effect. Moreover, this form of representation draws attention to how the abstraction of a diagram and our notion of democratic action combine.

Also part of Barnaföldi’s work is a video installation that focuses on speeches made by candidates in the last EU presidential election after the results were announced on the day of the election. This projection from two sides shows on a folded screen the last sentences of the speeches of the winners and losers. In the selected excerpts, the images focus on the facial expressions of the speakers. Both the similarities in the rhetoric and the similarities in the body language of the winners and losers become apparent.

The fourth part of the project is another video work that shows diary-like and very personal images of Barnaföldi on the day of the last presidential election in Hungary as well as her own ECG data. In a poetic way, the artist arranges fragments, such as views of the dishes she ate and the pattern of the floor in the hospital where she was fitted with the long-term blood pressure monitor. The results of the measurement are faded in like subtitles.

In his theory of the state entitled „On the Social Contract or Principles of the Law of the State“, Rousseau analyses that the English people have their freest moment when they vote. Barnaföldi’s artistic analysis shows the interweaving and interplay between voters and candidates, between election results and personal feelings, and between voters and the conditions in parliaments. The freedom proclaimed by Rousseau in the 18th century had to be earned by the individual. In Barnaföldi’s work, it becomes clear through the characters shown in the political field that freedom is currently associated more with the right to demonstrate than with the possibility of electing political representatives, who appear quite schematic.

Text: Dr. Silke Förschler

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Anna Barnaföldi

Anna Barnaföldi is a media artist and visual art teacher in digital culture in Hungary. She studied at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts (HUFA) and Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design in Budapest. Recently she has finished her doctoral studies at HUFA. Her artwork takes a critical view of cultural and political issues and explores the varying relationships between analysis and interpretation. Since 2011 Barnaföldi’s objects, videos and projects have been exhibited in Hungary and Austria. Barnaföldi has been awarded research residencies and scholarship programs in Austria and the USA.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annabarnafoldi/