Signals

747 hours of sunshine! The meteorological spring of 2020 set a new record, it was the sunniest spring in Berlin to date. And it was too dry.

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a double threat emerged: directly through the new virus for the health of each individual and indirectly through global warming for the survival of humanity as a whole.

These threats teach us about our vulnerability. They enforce an awareness of human physicality, which was also the aim of the barrier tapes that became a clearly visible feature of the Berlin cityscape in 2020.

The design of the strips led to a kind of remeasurement of the city. Their three-dimensional plasticity created an architecture of in-between spaces. In this way, our inner search for orientation was captured externally in a very unique way.

Illuminated by the sun, the signal red of the tapes sounded an alarm. The barriers became an attraction in their own right, pointing to the future in which humans will increasingly have to take a back seat.

The photographs of these temporary ‘hotspots’ are provided with a wide white border and labelled with information about the place and time, in keeping with the aesthetics of instant images.