The signals of the traffic lights at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin shape the visual and acoustic rhythm of the installation Crossing Circles. In 1924, Germany’s first traffic light was installed at what was then the busiest intersection in Europe. The untamed life of the metropolis has since been regulated by the most advanced technologies.
The traffic light thus becomes, quite literally, a ‘shining example’ of modernity. It also stands as an early protagonist or even pioneer in a narrative that feels strikingly current: the love-hate relationship between humans and machines and the regulation of social life through technology—as promise and as an everyday reality, but also as a curse of progress.
Crossing Circles transforms the data of the ‘Potsdamer Straße / Ebertstraße / Stresemannstraße traffic signal system,’ to give it its full title, into a sensual, audiovisual experience that only faintly reveals its origin and thus any concrete information. Crossing Circles is an invitation to engage in playful exploration, where curiosity and desire set the rules.