Untitled (BERLIN) started on a forty-three-day road trip, between September and October 2012, cataloguing, through photography, all the thirty communities called Berlin in the United States of America. The idea behind this journey was to reference, through photography, the semiotic connection established between different landscapes represented by the same name. This link, which is purely toponymical at the start, makes it possible to connect and establish a relation between very different and geographically remote realities [an experience of place].
The results were thirty series of 140 slides (taken with Kodak Elitechrome film on a Nikon F80 camera, and digitized with a Nikon D800 camera). These, having been formally registered and following the same protocol (similar compositions, distance to the object, height, format, and no people), provide us with the tools to establish the main coordinates on which one can find and analyze other elements of continuity, such as the typical architecture or vehicles of the so-called American Way of Life that are determinants of the human-made landscape. This visual correlation allows us to reflect on a homogeneous-looking territory despite the big distances that can separate one Berlin from another.
In 2022, a selection of 8 views of each Berlin has been published in a photographic-essay entitled Berlin (America), by JB Institute publisher, in Berlin (Germany).
"In this essay I consider each photograph as a break during the road trip. In the images we observe the landscape that I found in front of me in Berlin, giving this experience the attention it deserves, on the way to my next destination. A destination that repeats itself continuously, constantly going from Berlin to Berlin, from Berlin to Berlin, from Berlin to Berlin … for 13,294 miles / 21,394 kilometers."
Map of Berlins in USA (Google Maps)
Alabama (North)
Alabama (South)
Arkansas
Connecticut
Georgia
Iowa
Illinois
Kansas
Kentuky
Massachusett
Maryland
Missouri
North Dakota
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Nevada
New York
Ohio (North)
Ohio (Suoth)
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pensilvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Vermont
Wisconsin (North)
Wisconsin (South)
West Virginia
Slide light-table