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.

 
Hi, this is Lyn and i'm delighted because this is one of the first times that i actually get to walk my talk - listening to and interacting with people from lots of different disciplines and directions. What I found so intriguiing about the work Kris and Ben discussed was that we are wrestling with the same problems in the (supposedly) radically different domains of science and high performance computing. What are the processes of collaboration, and what happens to the process whenyou try to measure or define or analyse it? I would really like to follow this work, and i hope it gets written up/ produced/ archived in a form that we can refer to later on as a case study in this type of understanding and supporting collaboration.
posted by Ben at 4:49 PM

 
Greetings, this is Steve and Nina just passed this computer to me so I can add to this. Without further ado - Ben and Kris' talk was well received because it's the perfect topic of a summit like this one - the fact that collaboration, as something which exists somewhere but is difficult to pin down (or gets destroyed if we do try to do so) is fascinating and possibly one of the major things to come out of the day for me so far. I'm upset that I'm not going to be here to actually see the performane though - from the pictures in this mornings presentation, it lookslike it would be both inspiring and moving, and I will be checking in on the blog to watch. As an aside, Banff is probably the best place in the world for a performance like this - amazing landscape, motivating people, and good, hard work (and beer). Smashing.
posted by Ben at 4:41 PM

 
Hi this is Nina, and I'm here at the Summit. Kris and Ben presented a show and tell on their previous Hastings project, and the audience here loved it. I'm interested in how everyone here seemed to be able to relate to doing a project which itself is about an expedition, and wanted to engage with K & B in terms of how they actually wrote a presentation about doing collaboration. At the break we discussed different kinds of reconstructions which might be carried out - I suggested the Stonewall Riots, Sara Diamond thought Saturday Night Fever. I was also struck by the way in which the pictures which Ben showed of the mountain teams have changed over the years - position of the sherpas, etc.
posted by Ben at 4:36 PM

 
We have just met all the team from Mountain Culture, looked at the workshop, which is great and wonderfully equiped, and seen where we will be in the dining room. Leslie Charla and Shannon have done a great job in preparing for our arrival. Thankyou for all your hard work, and thankyou to the dining room and workshop staff for accomodating us. It is all very reassuring. Now all we have to do is make the mountain , prepare the figures and bios and do the actual performance!
posted by Ben at 3:44 PM

 
Kris and I are now in Banff. Right now Kris is giving a paper with Nina Wakeford about how to evaluate collaboration. It seems to be going down well. Kris is talking about nuggets i.e. good/useful things that can be identified from research/data. 'Cut to the chase' items.

I have been listening to Walton's Te Deum performed at the coronation. I am struggling with it and with Parry's anthems.

So far despite being in the beautiful Rockies we have hardly been outside. We both woke up at 5am and started work on our paper. that we are presenting this afternoon. at 6am. Oh the weirdness of jet lag.
posted by Ben at 11:26 AM