In his photo book For the Aliens, Léo Berne repurposes his personal image archive to create a visual introduction to life on this planet. With reference images ranging from simple (a plane, the color green) to abstract (melancholy, death), this is a guide book to earth intended for those who’ve never been.
“I take pictures like a tourist. I collect, sometimes arrange, sometimes stage some moments of my personal life,” Berne says. “With time, the photographic image, by its concrete reality, takes over the abstract mental one, it consumes it.”
In For the Aliens, Berne takes this idea of photo-as-reality and runs with it, using his photos to build a record of what it feels like to be a person existing, right now, on this planet. The Paris-based photographer shot these images all over the world.
“In this book, I use 20 years of my personal photography to explain the earth to the aliens, somehow offering an intimate alternative to NASA’s formal message of the Golden Records sent to space in 1977,” Berne says. Released into space aboard the Voyager spacecrafts, the Golden Records are phonograph records intended to give an idea of what life on earth was like to any intelligent beings who might encounter them. The records include messages in 55 ancient and modern languages, the sounds of various animals, wind, waves, and music from various cultures, as well as 115 images.
The choice of which cultural artifacts should be included on the Voyager probes was controversial. How could the diversity of human history be represented in such a small number of images? It’s obvious that the picture of life on earth included in the Golden Records was highly subjective and swayed by the personal interests of the people who put it together.
It is here that Léo Berne takes up the legacy of NASA’s odd project, seeking to “question how personal photography can be a subjective window to reflect our world.” By creating an archive for extraterrestrial life that’s made up only his own photos, Berne highlights the inherent subjectivity of all photography.
“The order of the pictures follows a sort of stream of consciousness, each picture responding to the previous one. From nature, to transports, to human activities, finishing with feelings and death, I try to approach the maximum of subjects that my material allows me.”
For the Aliens is available from &co119. The softcover book has an appropriately holographic green cover. Shipping is free worldwide from September 22nd to 30th, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the book’s publication.
Find more of Léo Berne’s photography at his portfolio, built using Format. He’s also selling prints on his portfolio store.
This is a sky
This is a shadow
This is an umbrella
These are suburbs
This is a woman
These are friends
This is a motorbike
This is shopping
This is calling
This is a plane
This is a honeymoon
This is hair
This is laughing
This is a party
This is cleaning
This is tasting
This is green
This is TV
This is a gunshot
This is melancholy
This is the wind
This is old
This is travelling
This is dusk
This is death
More photo books:
This Book Might Be The End of Photography As We Know It
10 Photo Books That Bring Portfolios to Life
Jason Lee’s Photography of a Dust-Covered America
