Anna Ehrenstein

Who keeps AI running – and what impact does this labor have on those who perform it? In _The Language of the Soil_, Anna Ehrenstein takes up this very question. The project was developed in close collaboration with researcher Ariana Dongus as well as activists and worker-researchers Richard Mathenge, Mophat Okinyi, and Fasica Berhane – all of whom have worked as digital platform laborers themselves and connected Ehrenstein with further workers and stakeholders on the ground. Set within a hybrid mythological landscape, the multisensory exhibition renders tangible the interplay of (post-)colonial continuities, global economies, and the invisible labor that underpins algorithms. At its core are the individuals in Nairobi who train large language models, and copywriters in Cairo producing content for OnlyFans. > “My work understands artistic research as collective knowledge production. In The Language of the Soil, the focus is not on individual insight or ‘artificial’ intelligence, but on shared intelligence – on knowledge that forms between people, technologies, and stories, like light reaching many eyes.” _ – Anna Ehrenstein_ In Ehrenstein’s practice, soil represents both origin and trace – the often invisible residues of labor. It embodies the material foundations upon which digital economies are built, while also pointing to the persistence of historical hierarchies and exploitative structures that continue to shape today’s global labor and data economies. The ground becomes a symbol of the entanglement of human, nature, and technology – a starting point for artistic reflection and collective fiction. You are invited to trace the conditions of this form of digital labor, to recognize the marks of human work embedded within technological systems, and to reflect on your own position within these structures. At the same time, the exhibition raises urgent questions about solidarity, agency, and resistance in an increasingly automated world.