Signals

747 hours of sunshine. The spring of 2020 broke all previous meteorological records. It was the sunniest spring since record keeping began in Berlin in 1893. And it was excessively dry.

With the outbreak of the corona pandemic and the first imposition of lockdown, it became apparent that we were facing a twin-pronged crisis and both, the climate change and the new virus, teaches us our vulnerability. It forces us to become aware of our own physicality, which is necessarily targeted by the measures put in place to contain the pandemic: proximity, contact and community.

Essential aspects of public life have been put on hold, and our freedom of movement has been restricted. The most visible evidence for this is the barrier tape that cut through the Berlin cityscape this spring.

The red and white tape has not only changed our urban space but also forcibly attracted our attention. It has thus become an attraction in its own right – and a powerful symbol of the state of emergency.

The familiar city appeared strange, in unusually intense colors due to the extraordinarily pure air. I moved around Berlin like a tourist taking snapshots of the local sights. these were "sights" in a temporarily inverted sense, because the places were not accessible. But they were unintentional points of attraction, sometimes bizarre, sometimes with almost a virtual quality. Some of the landmarks in context even resembled object art, transformed into something completely different from their original purpose.

In keeping with the aesthetics of the Polaroid camera, the photographs are given a white border. Like instant images, they are labelled, but not with personal notes – rather with documentary information including location and time.