Nahaufnahme 2014

Von Pawel Sawicki

After the seminar at Sachsenhausen you can coin a joke: where can you meet the largest number of journalists? Where the wi-fi is the strongest. Well, I know that it could generally apply to a large part of population who use their smart toys all the time, but here we deal with media.

(c) Pawel Sawicki

Our little agora was formed in the lobby – there is a sofa, few armchairs, some leaflets around, dust bins near the door, but – and this is the most important – this is the place around the whole house where the wi-fi is the strongest. And indeed the lobby changed into a kind of agora. People sit and work here all the time – some check facebook and chat, some write their articles, some edit photos, some discuss about projects, some just check the news. For a moment it even changed into a photographic studio. The topics discussed around the table change all the time – it only depends on what appears on different screens.

It is also our little stock exchange of information. March 17 and the time around it will be the period present in some history books, and certainly in international relationships textbooks – that’s because of the situation in Ukraine. The big things are happening there, but the wi-fi constantly brings us new information and facts, but also funny pictures, satire and irony about it. Somehow we want to be a part of it, we need the news coming, we want to know what is going on, so we stick to the place where the wi-fi is. Here we can be connected to the world. And this is the place where people are. Where we can talk, share, discuss, laugh or stay silent together.

Yesterday I took a picture of people taking notes with their pens. The picture of our little agora full of laptops also tells something about the journalists today. The world of information changes. The speed we work in changed, the technology changed, the tools available changed and our need of knowledge, information and content also changed. You still need a pen in this job, but a pen is certainly not enough. Unless it would be connected to the wi-fi (besides – let’s be frank – many of us are able to type faster than write with a pen). And there is nothing we can do about it. Let’s just have the strength to switch ourselves off the wi-fi from time to time.