The Commons describes the space where private spheres intersect - where the relationship of the one to the many, the individual to the collective, is negotiated. In The Commons_Berlin, short documentary fragments were posed as answers to the question what is common? Through these brief examinations of public space, intellectual property, the language of political consensus, models of collective living, globalization, and the collective unconscious, among other subjects, this inquiry attempted to paint the broadest picture of the myths and realities of what we share today.

The Commons_Berlin was conceived and directed by Christopher Allen. The script was created by Johanna Linsley and Christopher Allen. Original music was composed by Chicago-based composer Simon Fink, in collaboration with members of UnionDocs. Brooklyn-based DJ Mathhead contributed to the songs “Raum,” “So Far Away,” and “The City.” The videos “Stadt,” “Boden,” “Rohre,” “Alex,” and “Wurst” feature Berlin-based tenor Tom Allen and photographs from Stadtblind’s The Colors of Berlin. The project was a part of the arts festival Loving Berlin and was presented at the Volksbuehne Theater in Berlin for the Rollende Road-Schau festival.

Special thanks to Sudhir Venkatesh (Director of the Center of Urban Research and Policy at Columbia University), Dolores Hayden (author of A Field Guide to Sprawl and professor of architecture at Yale University) Lawrence Lessig (creator of the Creative Commons movement and professor of law at Stanford University) for lending their voices to The Commons_Berlin and to everyone who contributed their thoughts in recordings at UnionDocs.