A Centre for Audiovisual Research Event

Everest 1922: Audiovisual Perspectives is a half-day event mounted by Royal Holloway’s Centre for Audiovisual Research in collaboration with its Centre for GeoHumanities and the Royal Geographical Society.

2022-23 marks 100 years since the Mount Everest Committee, Alpine Club and Royal Geographical Society presented and toured its first film of an expedition to Mount Everest: the film opened in December 1922 and ran through the first months of 1923. Though ‘silent’, both Climbing Mt. Everest (1922) and its successor The Epic of Everest (1924) were afforded fascinating musical and sonic exhibitions. 

This event focusses on the sonic dimension of the first of these films, contextualising its approach more widely in the presentation and material exhibition of early travelogues and ethnographic films, as well as with respect to the rather differently presented Epic of Everest of the following year. 

As part of the event, original instrumental music created by mountaineer T. Howard Somervell and collaborator C.M. Smith-Dodsworth will be performed by student musicians at Royal Holloway and discussed for the first time since the 1920s.  An exciting addition to the event will be the contribution made by some Tashi Lhunpo Monks, who are currently on tour in the UK. In the workshop they will demonstrate the instruments that we see being played on screen, and formed the basis of Somervell’s and Smith-Dodsworth’s Westernised musical arrangements.

Panellists to discuss and reflect upon these multidimensional presentations:

• Professor Ian Christie is a film scholar at Birkbeck, University of London who researches and writes extensively on early cinema, especially in Britain.
• Professor Felix Driver is an historical geographer at Royal Holloway specialising in collections-based research and public engagement in the arts and humanities.
• Professor Julie Brown is a musicologist at Royal Holloway specialising in film music, especially silent film music.
• Dr Jan Faull is former Archive Production Curator at the British Film Institute and advisor for ‘Everest Through the Lens’ at the Royal Geographical Society. She recently completed a PhD at Royal Holloway on expeditionary films and media culture. 

Join us

Please complete this short form if you wish to attend this event, and state whether you wish to attend in-person or as a virtual participant: https://forms.office.com/e/0QK94kFBbX

Car parking

When you arrive for a College event at our Egham campus, please park in car parks 12 or 4.

Car park 12 can be accessed by turning right as you enter the main College gates and is located next to the tennis courts. If this car park is full, please drive further onto our campus to car park 4, which can be accessed by turning left at the mini-roundabout behind the Students’ Union. If you find both of these car parks full, we have a further large car park 14, which can be used by event guests and is located across the A30 on our North Campus, accessed via Harvest Road. You can see each of our car parks on the map opposite. We would advise that you bring the College map to campus with you and give yourself plenty of time to park.

Blue Badge holders can find designated parking spaces in Car park 1W, as well as between Gardeners Lodge and the Williams Annexe. You can find these locations by looking at our campus map opposite. If you require any assistance on arrival, please contact our premises team in advance of your visit by emailing: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk and they will be happy to help.

Please note that we operate an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system on certain parts of our campus, however if you are here for an organised event, parking is unrestricted for event guests in car parks 12, 4 or 14 (or display your blue badge permit if parking in a disabled bay). If you have any questions about parking, please email: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk