Adam Chodzko: Rising
Date uploaded: September 4, 2013
LIVE PERFORMANCE: Saturday 7th September at 4pm, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle. Entry is FREE, book your place at the performance here
RADIO BROADCAST: From 11am on Sunday 15th September on basic.fm
LAUNCH EVENT: 5-8pm Saturday 7th September, St Thomas’ Church, opposite the Haymarket Metro.
Rising is the first ever radio broadcast by artist Adam Chodzko working with award winning film and television sound designer Tim Barker and actress Gretchen Egolf.
Co-commissioned by Invisible Dust and Great North Run Culture to be broadcast on basic.fm, Tyneside Cinema's online radio project. It is part of the British Science Festival 2013.
More than 54,000 people are taking part in the 2013 Great North Run. Rising imagines an extraordinary, waterlogged, dreamlike future in which Great North Run participants have adapted both physically and psychologically to a semi-aquatic environment brought about through flash flooding and rising water levels as a result of climate change.
In this hypnotic work Chodzko fuses together two extreme mind and climatic states. One is the psychological environment of the runner’s mind which might be subject to changes over the course of a long distance run and the other is the idea of climate change and the collapse of favourable climatic conditions necessary to sustain human life. These two powerful ideas are cleverly amalgamated and accommodated within the structure of the work. Different states of consciousness as experienced by athletes as they become more and more immersed within the activity itself and more and more fatigued come to echo and reflect the breakdown and extremes of climate change. There is also a close correlation between ‘unconsciousness’ in this piece and rising flood water.
The audio work can be downloaded and listened to by anybody but is especially intended for exhausted Great North Run participants and their supporters to listen to whilst returning home directly after the race on Sunday 15th of September.
Rising is also an acknowledgement of the legendary and freak weather event that took place at 4pm on 28th June 2012, nicknamed the 'Toon Monsoon', when Newcastle came to a standstill. The Tyne Bridge was hit by lightning and a month’s rain fell in one hour causing widespread chaos and flooding. The famous sight of runners crossing the Tyne Bridge out of Newcastle has, for Chodzko, become a ritualistic preparation for the city’s evacuation prior to its inevitable submersion under flood waters.
Alice Sharp (Invisible Dust curator) introduced Adam Chodzko to Dr Claire Walsh, Researcher in Water Resources, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, at Newcastle University and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research who has been researching the flood (see below) and Chodzko has reimagined the ‘Toon Monsoon’ of tomorrow.
Rising is part of a new Invisible Dust programme entitled Invisible Heat exploring the effects of climate change on health, supported by the Wellcome Trust.
How to listen to Rising:
Rising will be broadcast on basic.fm on the day of the Great North Run, Sunday 15th September from 11am: http://www.basic.fm/listen-here/
basic.fm is a net radio broadcast project initiated by Pixel Palace, the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle Upon Tyne. basic.fm stands for Broadcast Art, Sound and Independent Culture.
Click here to listen online OR on your phone via the free basic.fm iTunes and Android apps, OR search for basic.fm on Tunein radio: http://tunein.com/radio/basicfm-s189864/
Podcast from 7th September
This will be available on Great North Run Culture and Invisible Dust during the British Science Festival 7th – 12th September 2013.
BALTIC Talk: Monday 9th September
Alice Sharp, Curator and Director of Invisible Dust will be part of a panel and speak about 'Rising' as part of the Extraordinary Renditions: the Cultural Negotiation of Science, 11.00-17.00, a Symposium and networking Event at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead.
Rising is supported by the Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, Newcastle University, basicFM, CIRCA projects, The British Science Festival 2013, The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
