Is someone coming to get me? |
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This blog will document an artistic collaboration between Ben Coode-Adams and Kris Cohen. The final work, to be performed from 28th-30th May at the Banff Centre, will stage simultaneous, real-time re-enactments of three related events: the first ascent of Everest in 1953, the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and a commericial climb of Everest in 1996 which ended in disaster.
CONTACT info@bencoodeadams.com Please send us thoughts, photos, questions. Or leave comments using the 'Shout Out' links. We'll post them here or try to use them in the performance.
BIOS Kris Cohen is a research fellow in the INCITE group at the University of Surrey, Dept. of Sociology. Ben Coode-Adams is an artist whose work spans traditional sculpture, video installation, performance and curating. All his work is based on developing innovative means of delivering complex and often esoteric ideas and information, in an engaging and accessible way. Working across disciplines collaboration is a cornerstone of his work. |
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Busy now 12.30pm and we have ten very dedicated visitors. Unfortunately not much is happening as Rob Hall, Doug Hansen and Andy Harris are trapped at the Hillary step. Scot Fischer and Makalu Gau are at the South Summit and everyone else is either pinned down in the huddle on the South Col or in the tents. The only thing moving is the procession of the coronation which is taking three hours to reach the west end. Quiet now. Dusk in Banff. Dusk on Everest. People trickle in to see one or two at a time. The calm is a little odd, a little at odds, because this is in fact an extremely violent moment on the mountain, with the storm kicking up, trapping people high on the mountain, zero visibility, people are frantic. Yet the dining hall is strangely soporific. Disaster is about to strike. The climbers are enveloped in a storm. However Jon Krakauer describes it as intermitment as well as the worst storm ever!? Hillary and Tenzing are down and safe. The 1996 climbers are spread all over the mountain now, from the Summit to the Balcony, and the storm is looming. Many people are far too high on the mountain. Queen Elizabeth is about to undergo The Homage. Jade Azzaria-Byrne and Trish are enacting this part. Stuart from the local paper is here taking pictures and asking kind questions. And Leslie Taylor, head of Mountain Culture, is here for a final look. Interesting to perform the piece for so many people who know the books. They seem to experience the work in a particular way. But the visualisation really snaps the events into special focus for everyone. The people who know our source material tend to see the work as strictly about mountaineering; interestingly, the artists-in-residence here seemed to engage with the piece as art. Everyone has reached the summit now. So the fun bit starts in the descent. We have been really busy talking to people. As in Hastings many of them have come back several times. Word is spreading so we now have roughly ten people around all the time. We have been fimed and photographed and interviewed. We have been awake now for 34 hours now so we are becoming mildly disengaged. I am sipping capuccino as I write. Trish is back again and has offered us reiki massages which we are saving for desperate times. Supper will be starting soon. It is very busy for us talking to people so we hardly have time to eat. We are almost in another place though. There's a happy chaos now. Many many people and I've gone into tourguide mode. Where does that smile and snappy patter come from? It does make me realise (aside from how much I can embarrass myself sometimes) how public this piece is, and how it likes an audience--despite my sense that it's a very inward looking piece. Maybe that's it exactly. We're still getting the live music mix and I'm still in seventh heaven about that. Hillary and Tenzing are on their way down the mountain. In 1996, the first climber has summitted and others (including the famous Krakauer) are soon to follow. Forlorn, blind Beck Weathers continues to wait for a Rob Hall who will never come for him. And altitude with fatigue are combining to cause people to make stupid mistakes. Yasuko Namba nearly clips into an as-yet unfixed rope and nearly pulls several other climbers off the mountain. We're all getting tired. But the crowds makes it so much easier. It makes it work. Just 20 minutes ago, Hillary and Tenzing ('53) reached the formidable free climb at 8766 metres that would later bear Hillary's name as The Hillary Step. He climbed up it using his crampons, wedging himself in a tiny crack and shimmying up backwards. The 96 crew continue to bunch up. There is a threesome who are about to start seriously considering turning back (wisely, it turns out). Scott Fischer, the leader of Mountain Madness, and Rob Hall, the leader of Adventure Consultants, continue to lag dangerously far behind. Beidleman leads the way. Lots of great visitors. The music continues to keep me excitable and engaged. Damn, the live radio mix is so good. There are nearly reference-less sounds intercutting coronation music (so overstuffed with reference that it behaves in the same way: reference-less; hard for me to hear), and placed amidst interviews with famous mountaineers, reflections on 1953, and reminiscences about Hillary and Tenzing and the 'golden age of mountaineering.' It's helping the piece pull together for me, while also helping the piece achieve an even greater strange-ness, which I always find useful for thinking. You can hear it wherever you are: http://radio90.fm. Tune in. It's great, and integral (makes me want to dance, oddly and wonderfully). Sorry for the scarcity of posts in the last hours. We've been busy with the coronation, and the internet connection has been intermittent. Photos on camblog soon. Listen to internet radio 90 in the meantime. The contrast between Hillary and Tenzing's climb and the confusion of the 1996 expeditions is amazing. Seeing the threads move up the mountain, I have this strong sense of witnessing both climbs in the present. It's hard to leave. I have a sense that all of the participants are still alive, and this ominous feeling that I am watching them climb towards their death. I'd like to change the story by showing them what will happen, telling them to turn around. I wonder what was their motivation. Are they wishing they were somewhere else and where? What voices are they hearing inside their heads? A guest at the Banff Centre indentified the music playing in the background of the exhibit as the coronation piece - she is a conductor. What a strange contrast. Yesterday I saw a photo of the members of the 1953 expedition sitting in their tents listening to the Queen's coronation on the radio. I'll have to come back at 11:30 to celebrate Tenzing and Hillary's arrival at the summit. -Seana Breakfast is now in full swing, 270 people expected. Fortuitously Zadok the Priest by Handel came on the local internet radio at 7.30. All power to radio 90 (listen live on 89.9FM in the Banff area), Susan and Cindy who are planning to do mix up some sounds for us during the day, live and raw. http://radio90.fm Hillary and Tenzing are moving steadily upwards although much slower than 1996 climbers who are now past the Balcony. Woo. Morning everyone. Or, good morning you one person wandering by out there. Here's the scene: there's an ugly pile up on the Balcony, which is about 8446m high. It's not a very big area and just about all 32 climbers will be stuck there eventually because nobody fixed the guide ropes above that point. In a few minutes, 4 people will leave to do just that. And in the coronation, they're about to enter a section called "Presenting the Holy Bible", full of more intimidatingly weighty language. And in 1953, Hillary and Tenzing are just readying themselves to begin their ascent to parts of the mountain that have never been seen before. PhotoCredits [photographer/owner: subject] Photosouth: Andy Harris Scott Fischer/Woodfin Camp Associates: Scott Fischer, Jangbu and Tawainese sherpa, Jon Krakauer: Stuart Hutchinson in Icefall, Ascending Lhotse Face, Krakauer, John Taske in Icefall, Mike Groom at Balcony, Lopsang Jangbu, Caroline MacKenzie/Woodfin Camp Associations: Yasuko Namba, Beck Weathers Neil Beidleman/Woodfin Camp Associates: Klev Shoening, Anatoli Boukreev, Boukreev moving towards Hillary Step, crowded summit, Neil Beidleman Pete Schoening: Sandy Hill Pittman, Fox and Adams Klev Schoening: fox and madsen, Stuart Hutchinson Ed Viesturs: Everest labeled, Collection Terres d’Evasion: oxygen bottles on south col T. Kelly/ Woodfin Camp Associates: Lt. Colonel Madan Khatri Alfred Gregory: photos from 1953 expedition George Band/Royal Photographic Society: Hillary and Tenzing Dawn is just breaking. 5am. The same as on Everest. The climbers are all strung out now. With the new improved smaller figures we can really show this. We have just taken the Oath which is a pretty serious bond, to protect the rule of law and custom, the church and everyone else in the Commonwealth. The coronation party, after a grueling three hour procession (20 min. in 1953 time), has made it to the throne. Elizabeth is sitting on the throne. The people greet her with cries of 'vivat regina!'. The archbishop has presented her to the 4 cardinal directions of the assembled audience, asking if they will accept her as their queen. All implements but the swords are laid upon the altar. Frank Fischbeck has turned around and is now well below the main party who are approaching half way to the Balcony. Krakauer, Groom and Ang Dorje are leading, periodically waiting to allow the main body to catch up. Unlike Hastings where we were pretty alone during the night, there are a number of kitchen, security and cleaning people working here. They pop in occasionally to see how it is all going. There is a strange background hum of activity. 2:30am and a visitor has a helpful idea. One climber has just turned back...already, 2.5 hours into the climb. Soon, 3 others will follow him. There is a problem later with a shortage of oxygen and we were talking about this with our guest and he wondered: "what happened to the oxygen of the men who turned back?" Good thought. What did happen to that? Couldn't they have left it for the others to use when they came down? But then, they didn't know anything was going to go wrong. Maybe then went to their tents still breathing oxygen, which would have been a reasonable thing to do, given the altitude and the fact that it's very hard to sleep at 8000m. 2:10am Thurs morning all the teams are getting slowly jumbled together. It's a long slow climb in the dark and cold. The ridge is thin and the climbers basically have to walk in a single-file line. People pass each other, but it's difficult and dangerous to do so as it means walking on a very precipitous ridge. See camblog for new photos now and throughout the night. www.camblog.com. Our blog will probably always be first in the "recent" list. |
