Sunday 26 October 2008, 5.30-7.30pm, BBC Radio 6
Jarvis Cocker keeps Stephen Merchant’s seat warm on BBC Radio 6 as he plays a shed load of great ‘mood swing’ tracks, plus Martha Wainwright performs live and David Buckland talks about Cape Farewell and the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition. The archive of this show is available on the BBC iPlayer until 2 November 2008.

Jarvis Cocker is the doing the Stephen Merchant’s radio show with fellow voyager Martha Wainwright and David Buckland as guests.
Sunday, 26 October 2008, 5.30 - 7.30pm, BBC Radio 6

Sunday 26 October 2008, 5.30-7.30pm, BBC Radio 6
Jarvis Cocker keeps Stephen Merchant’s seat warm as he plays a shed load of great ‘mood swing’ tracks, plus Martha Wainwright performs live and David Buckland talks about Cape Farewell and the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition.

Listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer until Sunday 2 Nov
If you missed it on Sunday you’ve still got a week left to listen to the programme on the BBC iPlayer. Follow the link to hear Jarvis, Martha and David until Sunday 2 November.
Listen to the show on BBC iPlayer ›

10 days of constant curiosity both from the scientists and artists have run me/us ragged. Western Greenland/Arctic has worked its magic, the debate has been constant and fledgling art processes have engaged and been executed, all of which have been well diarised in the blogs for this expedition.

Intellectual climate input was achieved with a series of daily talks: two given by the onboard scientists, three by the two Inuit guides and Dr Ko de Korte, Sunand Prasad tackled contraction and convergence, Quentin Cooper gave a great talk on ‘Cape Farewell’, Joe Smith on Carbon Trading and market response, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall, Chris Wainwright and Francesca Galeazzi led a lively discussion on the artists response/creativity and a final talk led by Marcus Brigstocke and Joe Smith addressed just how important it is to feel ‘up’ and empowered by things climate rather than crawl into a hole of despair. These were focussed discussions but all this input led to an endless dialogue in small breakout sessions where we all talked one on one over dinner and wine [and Vodka]. Lively!

The route for the voyage constantly changed in response to weather, scientific programs and artist’s intentions – the Russian Captain was fantastic, with no challenge too difficult. He entered into our spirit of adventure and art achievement, and I am sure this was all very much a first for him. Our furthermost north was Nuugaatsraq 71.50 degrees north and in all we covered over 1000 nautical miles. The foot of the glacier Sermeg Avangnardieq was our wildest environment and my personal favourite.

The 10 days we spent onboard were so densely packed it is going to take time for the full impact to register and be manifest in arts works and science. The list;
• Geological survey in five different locations, each tract between 2 and 12 miles long.
• CTD measurements and sea ice sampling.
• New songs written by Robyn Hitchcock, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton and Feist. Shlomo collaborated on two of the songs and Feist and Shlomo collaborated to create a Cape Farewell choir.
• Recording by Ryuichi Sakamoto and he is working with the geologists on a greater sound work based on their electronic data. Jonathan Dove is inspired, as was Jarvis – hold that page.
• Francesca ‘performed’ her CO2 work and the bench project.
• Tracy constructed three series of ‘automated’ physical drawings and worked on a new book project.
• Sophie Calle completed an artwork in the Arctic
• Chris Wainwright completed a planned project and evolved and completed a totally new work.
• Luke set up a recording studio and made a great recording of Martha and friends. Also there is rumoured to be a sound-scape which he crafted!
• Sunand Prasad completed his Weather balloon project – no small feat!
• I projected video onto a glacier wall and re-filmed it. I also began a new work of 46 portraits, each to be accompanied by a chosen piece of text. I also ‘performed’ a very experimental work, which maybe has worked and added to my archive of imagery.
• Vicky Long recorded all for her radio program.
• Laurie Anderson read so beautifully her stories both live and to camera.
• Lemn Sissay performed a full-on work.
• Sam Collins filmed endlessly for proposed new artworks and collaborations.
• Rachel Holmes from Southbank provided the Artistic Director, Jude Kelly, with a new script of ‘Paradise Lost’, abridged by Greg Mosse. Jude directed onboard the 32 ‘scenes’ with our crew of players and Peter Gilbert managed to capture the whole work in a very dense Sunday morning of filming. It is Milton’s 400th anniversary this year and the whole work is to be performed later this year.
• All the writers, poets, musicians and creative artists and science teams wrote both for blogs and for their own private diaries.

The media teams worked tirelessly and with great sensitivity, leaving a place where privacy was needed. That said, Peter Gilbert, Adam and Zack collected over 70 hours of videoed material. This will, over the coming months, be added to and will form the movie/film. Matt Wainwright filmed on HDV and edited all the material for the web and also as a support to the artists. Again 30 hours of footage. Nathan photographed everything and is now editing his archive. Quentin Cooper recorded everything that moved and was dead for his ‘Material World BBC 4 program.

Kathy Barber and Hannah were awesome in editing all the blogs, collecting photographs and edited film and got all this material back to UK base via satellite. Over 4 hours of very cold broadcasting each day.
The notion of what is Cape Farewell has had to be expanded to accommodate the constant shifting speed of climate engagement, the call from the scientists, the sheer size of our group and the attack needed to achieve a cultural shift. 46 people have now returned to their complicated lives, the energy contained in the feverous on-board activity will form a powerful voice of climate challenge Not a bad rate of exchange to our relatively small carbon footprint which has already been accounted for in the Cape Farewell policy of buying photovoltaics.

This rigorous discussion and activity has firmed up my thoughts that two major shifts are needed if we are going to mediate the threat of climate change. Political will – about 2 trillion dollars have been spent on the Iraq war, it is not hard to imagine the results of committing this amount of money over the same time period to getting to grips with climate issues. We are already in a mess that should have begun to be addressed but requires sustained political will power. Cultural shift – it is the way we have evolved our lives that has caused this un-stainable activity. We each have accepted a whole raft of values and activities that are not written in stone. The way we have chosen to live is not a fact and there must be an alternative way to find an exciting way to live that does not leave this trail of atmospheric waste and potential cultural destruction. This demands a cultural shift that I do believe is the most effective way to reduce 80% of our carbon footprint and it has to be implemented and acted upon. It also offers the spectre that the next twenty years could ferment the greatest change yet seen to a global society. Climate will force this and it is how we react that will write the future text.

At any point of cultural shift you will always find artists working, it’s sort of our job description. It feels totally appropriate that artistic curiosity is thrown into the caldron and this expedition has been an awesome response. All the artists are struggling to find a voice that doesn’t preach, doesn’t illustrate and we don’t do social engineering. As artists, if we take on climate as a frontal charge, it never works. There always has to be some footwork that shifts the process to a parallel path, a deviant tangent that clears the territory, the terrain that makes the process personal. Finding this place, whether it be in song, painting or prose is always challenging and awkward. Every one on board is a writer in some way, the songwriters that then take embryonic ideas to their bands, writers and poets who are direct and architects who write buildings and as with all writing processes, they are not time dependent. An idea spurned here could take weeks or years to come into being, and that cannot be prescribed – maybe because I am also an artist floundering around, this then breeds trust in the others.

Friday, September 26th, plane landing at Kangerlussuaq

We could see the east coast of Greenland, indifferent, majestic, and there they were - icebergs from above!! Aaaarrr!! We were suddenly all toddlers, looking down on the little minty sailboats being shoved out of the nest of the shore, forced to take off on voyages from which they would never return. Ever diminishing, ever more alone. Gliding off into the vastness. 

5 hours sailing down the gargantuan straight of Sondre Stromfjord, the light starts to get soaked up by the time. Like a waking dream. Milky green sea that looks alive. A beautifully perfected valley scraped out of the landscape as our guide, singing us out of its mouth. The weirdness. The spook. That half-light that makes you feel like the whites of your eyes are glowing. A low-lying cloud that turns a scottish landscape into a science fiction set. The boat is full and buzzing like a hive. The Belgian-Danish bar and restaurant manager Jan (Yan? Xian?!) has the best and weirdest burr on his r’s I’ve ever heard. Want to teach him the Ragged Rascal Ran toungue twister.

Saturday, September 27th, the sea has hills. Late.

Murky half light. It felt like a kid was playing with our boat using his whole arm, up and down, up and down, over the hills of the sea. I imagined we were in the downy neck of a huge eagle (to avoid associations with sea-related hurling, which worked thankfully); UP - the wings flap down, DOWN - the wings flap up. Valleys and lakes.

I dreamt of walking a path up to an old house where a family party was taking place, but there was a strange quiet and calm residing over it all. I read in a Jack White interview that he hates it when people use the word ’strange’ when talking about their dreams. Yeah?! Well no luck Jackie baby, it was a well strange quiet!! That milky green scene last night was something else.

I feel like I’m starting to stop.

Sunday, September 28th, Qeqertassuak. Gurr-kurr-tiss-wack.

Bleak, sleet, cold; howling packs of half wolf hounds that have had their barks bred out of them. Black sand, with blue white icebergs as big as multi-storey car-parks, road bridges, office blocks. Their little relatives pecking at sand, littering the beach. Each of these unliftable baby ‘bergs look like something. A chicken. A swan. A turtle.
The dogs are everywhere, chained, wet, wild. I see a mother with two unchained puppies strangling herself to try and reach a huge hole another dog has dug himself, all the other dogs wailing and straining towards it. The dog in the centre has caught one of her puppies. I walk away feeling ill and deeply domesticated.

This is an exceptionally hard place to live, for people and for dogs. Thank god they have access to mad coloured paint; this little town looks like Tobermory/Balamory after Bungle and Zippy decided to buy timeshares. Clumps of multi-coloured houses perched on the perma-frost. Trying to imagine how the hell you survive winters of gruelling minus temperatures when the sun totally disappears for two and a half months. Christmas, as you can imagine, is a really big deal here.

Wednesday, October 1st, Uummannaq.

Finally I saw the ribbons in the sky, the northern lights. Slow and suggested, swaying velvet curtains in a drafty cosmos. We all played a gig in a bar tonight, I don’t know what happened but the great boot from outwith crushed my mojo…Floored by quiet endings, the rip of other roars, it’s not good when you reject yourself in a Greenlandic bar faced with the brilliance of Hitchcock, Cocker, Wainwright, Sakamoto and Feist. Not my night. My heart is twisted up like kid’s balloon and I imagine looks like a poodle.

But the amazement of this day ultimately overshadows self-indulgent confidence crashes. The snow, the mountain emerging into the whip-crack of the light, howl howl. Yellow on my face. The viking Rene who arrived 15 years ago and decided to stay and raise lost kids in a much needed childrens home. The music they played, that choir that bloody wrung me out singing their goodbye ode to the sun. The beautiful old woman in the red jacket. I am not what I think I am, I am not yet what I hope I am. I am a pond, a car-park. I feel like a car-park.

I feel like I could live in Uummannaq, it feels like a good town with good people in it. Song coming…

Thursday, October 2nd, Perdlerfiup Sermia Glacier

Woke up with a belly-full of metaphorical tequila. Still feel the shape of the balloon-dog heart in there, but feel altogether better about that. I know it’s good to feel this.

Snap, snap, walking in a baltic alien landscape and still the grass grows through the snow, all that life that waits patiently beneath for endless sun. Dark red berries fresh under foot stain the powder like blood and trigger thoughts of the hunting that goes on here.

Blood on snow is a disturbing picture, and one that says much about our situation as humans on a planet straining to meet our needs and greeds. But the Greenlandic skill of using every last scrap of animal and knowing what to use it for is undoubtedly impressive.

Friday, October 3rd, Sermeq Avangnardleq Glacier 

It’s cold, cold, cold. Tired eyes in a warm, grateful way. I saw different things today, alternative layers, other people’s stories. I love it here and I don’t want to leave. I’ve said it already, but it is so dreamlike. Definite tones of Wes Anderson’s ‘The Life Aquatic’; if only we had 40 blue boiler suits and red woollen bobble hats. Riuchi Sakamoto and Jarvis Cocker playing ambient mood music in the bar, icebergs peering in through the port-holes. Friendly scientists dropping large flashing contraptions into the water in the dark to map the mountains below the surface. Coe, David (Steve Zissou)’s wonderful right hand man making heart-meltingly sincere announcements in his lovely Dutch accent about getting into the Zodiac boats to go and ‘explorrr the shorrr’ and ending every time “……That Ish All”.

Marcus made me weep laughing this evening by re-enacting his presentation at an arts and crafts awards ceremony, the ‘Best Porcelain Hedgehog’ category making me nearly wee.

Sunday, October 5th

Our last day. You know that Apple Mac screen saver with the cosmic tracer thing swirling around? About 10 of us were stood on deck late night and looked up at the same time that it escaped out of someone’s laptop, gained gargantuan proprtions and launched itself out of the sky above our heads in neon green; spinning, speeding, an incredible Catherine Wheel firework that made us all scream. I stayed out there for an hour and a half in minus ten, making myself laugh as my frozen face was about 5 seconds behind any words I tried to say. The best light show in the world.

Stayed up in the bar pretending we didn’t have to leave at 5am, gabbing away to my rad new sister Vanessa Carlton and dancing to Bill Withers.

Grabbed a couple of hours sleep and woke up to my last bowl of porridge and rumours that Graham Treehugger was going to enjoy a morning dip in the sea/liquid nitrogen. We all ran out reminiscent of a fight at school, and there he was in his swimmers, barefoot and perched on the railings 15 feet above the water. We thought he was going to die. He didn’t die, he splashed around delighted, whooped, climbed up to the 4th level at 30 feet and jumped in again. The thermometer was reading -15 outside.

Now, I remember going in the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath one scorching weekend in late April and was instantly paralysed and unable to remember my name. Who was this man?! Impressive.

My lasting memory was the tide line back on land. In the virgin dawn light I saw that the only flotsam left by the sea on the beach was a thin line of ice; pure white, in the shape of a wave.

Ryuichi had told us when he played his recording of an underground glacial stream that it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. The sound of water that was frozen solid before human beings even existed, heard for the first time, unspoilt, no particles of plastic. Baby water. Old as the earth.

As we waited to board our plane, a Greenlandic choir sat at a table in the golden morning sun, absent-mindedly eating sandwiches and practising one of the same songs we had heard at the children’s home.

Beautiful, mournful, comforting, ancient, innocent.