Art professor Sheryl Oring sits at a desk outside the Berlin Wall Memorial, clacking away at a typewriter like a secretary, with thick-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose.

A man stands before her giving a testimony that will form part of an art project aimed at getting a sense of how people today feel about one of the most pivotal moments in modern German and world history.

"When I stand here, I am affected very emotionally," says Hans Kitta, who left East Germany shortly before the wall, the most potent symbol of the Cold War, was built in 1961. The barrier divided the West German part of the city from the East until 1989.