Day 4

9 February 2009

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The End

Medium is the Message

At last, the first day of serious work has begun. Despite the frosty weather and sunny sky we were a little bit sleepy. Luckily, we were enthusiastic enough and after having discussed the subject of our job with Laurence we started working. “The plan is nothing and the planning is everything!” like someone has said, so our first task was to fix our aims and ways to achieve them. Nearly every member of our project has got a request to write us a report about particular event, workshop or impression. What is more, we had to collect many photos and interviews.  Having done the plan for two weeks we decided to take a break for lunch and lunchtime lecture. In the afternoon we gathered at our workshop again and got on working. Everyone was busy with typing or photo editing. Finally, after a couple hours later we had our first reports done and uploaded to the internet!

Ramunas Kanapeckas (Lithuanian group)

Culture = Onion

Mr. Borgmann started his lecture with a kind of mind map, where the students explain in which context they normally heard „culture“.  We mentioned things like lifestyle, behaviour, politics, religion, music and a lot more. During this, we learned that culture itself has different meanings for different nationalities. So you can’t translate culture in one word, like a dictionary would do.
Culture is like a shadow or like a parfume, or an onion we mentioned. Mr. Borgmann explained to us a well known metaphor, talking about culture as the software of the mind. The group worked out that every culture has one operating system which consists of basic needs. Furthermore there are some updates, when history or environment changes.  Everyone has to bring it together for oneself, so we are the designer of our software.
Finally we talked about experiences we had to overrule our own software.  All of us were encouraged to have a deeper look at each others culture, to be open minded for cultural aspects.

Bianca Stenz (German group) & Ramunas Kanapeckas (Lithuanian group)

Are we Crazy!?

Mi vagųunk a cottage nr.21,
it seems that we attract everyone.
Who made us sleep together is Vytautas
and apparently he is real víťaz
Réka is our bella mamma
that makes us panne con salama.
Marcia vraimentlikes to chat
was reiztevery chap.
For Michal everyone atrodo lazy
aberhe doesn’t sleep – are we crazy?
Ľubica macht Fotos all the time
aber zu diesem Satz fanden wir kein rhyme.

Réka, Marcia, Ľubica, Michal &Vytautas

Just Art!

On Tuesday evening we were kindly invited to visit the Western Light Art Gallery (www.art-gallery-ireland.com), located on Achill Island. Mr Sean Cannon made us feel very welcomed and told us that the family moved to Achill 20 years ago. His stunning photography is inspired by the sea and he said that one of the ideas in his work is seeking the secrets of Achill Island. In my opinion he has managed to capture the essential visual elements of the Island on paper. We were also lucky enough to admire some paintings and prints by Shane Cannon. In his work Shane has managed to capture the movement of water using various techniques. Altogether the experience was amazing and it helped me to see the different perspectives of the Island.
“May difference be your inspiration. May friendship be a gift.”

Aurora Mustonen (English group)