Editorial
September 2011
Welcome to the one and only Culture Cave!
The Culture Cave is home to travel, culture, global thought and is set to house a range of mediums to essentially form an interactive online magazine. Look out for articles, travel and interviews from all around the world on a diverse range of new and exciting topics! Other things to look out for include the online photography gallery displaying the world from our Editor’s eye. Watch this space for videos and podcasts too, which our Editor will be broadcasting from all around the world.
The idea of creating the world’s first ‘Culture Cave’ came to me as I was planning a spot of cave exploring in Palawan. My job as a cultural correspondent teamed with the very cool idea of a cave led me to envisage a “Culture Cave” where anything is possible. Et voilà. The ‘face’ of the Culture Cave on the homepage represents a cave entrance in the shape of an eye and with that a new vision of the world, mirrored by the wide range of topics, mediums and languages whilst representing the unity of the world we live in: we hope you like it (both the world and the Cave!)
The Culture Cave’s film of choice is Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten dreams. Herzog is a supporter of the Culture Cave and we enjoy his work. For those of you who have not seen the Cave of Forgotten Dreams, this truly breathtaking production, set in la grotte Chauvet Pont d’Arc, the Chauvet caves in the south of France, explores the mysterious etchings collaboratively created by generations from different eras. Time is the only thing that separates these cave-drawing creators from one another, for where one generation left an unfinished sketch, hundreds of years later, the next cave dwellers would literally pick up where the last human left off, as if they instinctively knew to do so. It is this innate human creative ability and spiritual connection, of which time was the only boundary that renders this one of the greatest films of all time. To read more about the caves on the French government website, click here: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/fr/
This week’s theme is cars. Shooting some vintage (and may I say colourful!) models for a car collector last weekend, my working life has been very much car-themed as of late. I am currently working on some very interesting projects, including a Dutch voice-activation system for a leading car manufacturer. My role involves the phonetics side of things, which in real driver’s terms means that the car can understand its driver’s verbal instructions and vice versa, through smoother computerised pronunciation and voice recognition that works. I have also been working with BMW’s headquarters in Germany, translating and marketing their BMW petrol-engine with high precision injection. (200 fuel injections at the blink of an eye to be precise!). Though I won’t bombard you with the entire prospectus, here is a snippet of this impressive technology: Die neuen BMW Benzinmotoren mit High Precision Injection
In between, I am running around getting all of my travel vaccinations and bits and pieces together as I prepare for a round-the-world trip, stopping off in some of the world’s most breathtaking locations. My to-do list is currently the length of the Great Wall of China (there might just be a literal reference there!) First stop though: Tokyo; the other destinations will be revealed en route. One year and four continents certainly ain’t bad 😉
Thank you to all of you who have joined the Cave’s Facebook page this week. http://www.facebook.com/TheCultureCave An RSS feed is available to those of you who would like to subscribe to the Cave Columns for updates. Our Editor would especially like to thank Deefer Design for all their help and input in getting this hub up and running online to share with the world. Explore the cave and enjoy!