
- Installation
- SPRING coproduction
- World premiere
Me, Le Corbusier, and a friend
Accessibility
After the success of Borderline Visible in 2024, the next edition of Time Based Editions will be presented at SPRING. A printed book and a soundscape come together in a temporary community. The audio guides you through mesmerizing photos and the story of two young men, one on his way to become later the architect Le Corbusier, on a seven-month journey to ‘the Orient’ in 1911.
It’s 1911, and Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (who would later call himself Le Corbusier) embarks on a seven-month journey to “the Orient” with his friend August Klipstein. Initially traveling to complete their studies, they end up encountering themselves as they traverse and photograph new realities and places.
The audio component of Me, Le Corbusier, and a friend is a “dialogue” between the two protagonists, a playful mise en scène by artist David Bergé that guides you through the visual material in your hands: their photographs, taken with a single shared camera on glass plates—an effort that seems almost unimaginable today. Cracks and imperfections create a sense of primitive authenticity, as though we’re present, in the light, with the camera. An archaic world emerges through layers of time.
As they attempt to explore and describe these layers, August and Charles-Édouard walk through parts of Istanbul destroyed by fire, linger by tombstones outside Belgrade, face a giant Orthodox priest in Greece, and photograph the sleek back of Hagia Sophia (not the obvious front). They naively encounter a battlefield marking the end of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout their journey, the characters build formative experiences, but also grow bored, lost, and bitten by strange insects. They try to assert control with the tools they share: their camera and a guidebook for Westerners.
A printed book and a sound space—two elements joined together in time and space, shared by a temporary audience community. The audio leads you through printed photographs while we follow a staged story of two young people encountering themselves during their journey in 1911. A book that unfolds over 43 minutes and 240 pages.
Time-Based Editions’ ingenious new format, of which this book is the first iteration, offers “audio” and “visual” as separate elements, yet held together in the present through the physical synchronizatoin of our hands. Together, we dive into the here-and-now of the page: printed photography brought to life by a soundscape that both guides and surrounds us.
During SPRING 2024, the first edition of Borderline Visible by Ant Hampton was presented.
Book
The book that accompanies this performance can be purchased after the show. It can also be purchased along with your ticket through the site.

"The interplay between soundscape and photobook works perfectly. Sometimes pages are black or you have to close your eyes, like blackouts in a movie. Some pages you have to let slide past your fingers like an old filmstrip - then the landscape passes you by."
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David Bergé
Credits
concept, writing, sequence: David Bergé
photography: Charles-Édouard Jeanneret and August Klipstein, 1911 with permission of Fondation Le Corbusier
Book design: Roland Brauchli
Photo enhancement: David Bergé
Photo retouching: Flavio Milano
Sound design: Martina Ruggeri
Voices: Sam Porritt, David Bergé
Spoken text correction: Daniel Lacasta Fitzsimmons
Field recordings: Martina Ruggeri, Filippo Brancadoro, David Bergé
Sound engineering: Filippo Brancadoro
Advice: Ant Hampton, Aemilia Papaphilippou, Liwaa Yazji
Production: Claudia Pastori, David Bergé
Time Based Editions: 240 pp, 43 min, ISBN 9789464772678
Created with the support of:
KANAL Centre Pompidou Brussels
Spring Foundation and Ammodo Utrecht
Platform 0090 and C-Takt, Antwerp / Neerpelt
Flanders State of the Art, Brussels
Flemish Community Commission, Brussels
Research and prototype support
Winternights, Maastricht
Continuation of a project conceived with Elke Krasny (2011)
With thanks to
Furkan Ark, Mesut Arslan, Tülay Atak, Hans Bryssinck, Federico De Mattheis, Sofia Kouloukouri, Alysée Le Druillenec, Musikarama Athens, George Papam, Iva Radivojević, Marcelo Rezende Me, Le Corbusier, and a Friend (2025) is the third edition in the Time Based Editions series.
Supported by KANAL Centre Pompidou (Brussels). Time Based Editions is an imprint of PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPANDED PUBLISHING ATHENS.