Anna and the Tower stages an encounter with Anna, newly trained as an air traffic controller, while on duty at Magdeburg-Cochstedt International, a former soviet airbase about two hours outside Berlin. Although fully updated in 2010 and ready for traffic, by winter 2013 it rarely had any commercial flights. The airport and tower lie quiet awaiting economic prosperity to come. Filmed on location with the control tower as stage, Anna rehearses the tasks of her job almost as rituals to pass the time. She repeats air-to-ground commands in a scripted performance of readiness, conjuring a hallucinatory narrative choreography of flights.

The stage-like installation is presented on three conjoined screens that reference the windows of Anna’s tower at dawn, dusk and night. The camera alternates between Anna and the empty landscape, projections move across the screens, as weather changes, lights appear, evoking an unsettled location. The video suspends ordinary time through projection and prediction, setting productive forces into motion with the desire to shape reality. Anna’s isolation is infused with optimism for an uncertain future.