After finishing my dissertation in December I wanted to travel for a few days in a different country. I had been told about the Transmedia Festival for art & digital culture that takes place every year in Berlin. I had been to Berlin the previous year to see The Knife play. I fell in love with place so many reasons mainly because it is a city that literally speaks to you in so many different ways. There are ways which you can find in other cites in the form of a tourist observing how other cultures act but the thing that makes Berlin stand out is how the buildings speak to you becoming alive with the graffiti written on the walls. At first sight it was slightly intimidating for me because when you se that much graffiti that means your usually in a dodgy area but after a while it walking street after street pass building after building it became a sort of melody for me.
One day I went on the over ground yellow trains which had a curved upward train track which reminded me of a slow amusement park ride. This was great for looking at the graffiti from a closer viewpoint. The word that stood out for me was “Poet” It was in white paint on a high building and it stood out from the other tags. This was poignant for me because walking the street of Berlin was like a visual poem.
The other way the city spoke to me was in the form of the photoautomat booths, which were spread out over the city. There are phootbooths in Britain but I felt like they are more embraced over there. They felt like they where places to freeze time for a moment in the on-going movement of life. The whole process of getting inside the booth thinking of statue poses between 4 quick fire shots which you get caught out while readjusting a pose and then going back into the flux of the world while waiting of the booth using a traditional method that produces these stunning vintage sepia images. While waiting the view of shuffling feet behind the black curtain adds to the mystic of the multiple transactions taking place. Face to camera, image to hand.
The memories of my first visit enticed me to come back again
Footsteps in the dark bring home the light- Project 5am
