On 25th May 2004, fifty bottles containing messages were released into the sea off the south east coast of England near Ramsgate Maritime Museum, Kent. The intended destination of the bottles is The Chatham Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The islands, which are 800km east of mainland New Zealand, are the nearest inhabited land to the precise location on the opposite side of the world to Ramsgate Maritime Museum. It is anticipated that the bottles may be found several times before reaching the Chatham Islands.

Inside several of the bottles is a bespoke GPS tracking device programmed to send its longitude and latitude coordinates via SMS text message back to a GSM modem in Ramsgate every hour. The information received is automatically processed by custom written software to create a real-time drawing of the bottles’ progress. The resulting “live drawing” is automatically uploaded onto the project website every 15 minutes.

The project website also provides a means for the non-GPS bottles to be tracked. Each bottle contains an instruction leaflet which requests anyone finding a bottle to report to the project website and record where and when the bottle was found. In addition they are requested to document their find on a form inside the bottle before returning the bottle to the sea to continue its journey. Details of found bottles may be viewed on the “view found bottles” page of the project website. In addition to providing the means of tracking the GPS and non-GPS bottles, the project website provides further information relevant to the project such as sections on “research and development” and “the launch” and an animated retrospective drawing of the bottles journey during the first four weeks of the project.



Links: www.fromramsgatetothechathamislands.co.uk

Layla Curtis (UK) holds a MA Fine Art in sculpture from the Chelsea College of Art and a BA in painting from the Edinburgh College of Art. She has had solo exhibitions in Great Britain and in Japan and participated in several group exhibitions and projects in Great Britain, France, Brazil and the US. She held Residencies at the Ramsgate Maritime Museum, in partnership with Turner Contemporary, Margate and at Akiyoshidai International Arts Village, Akiyoshidai, Japan and received awards from Woo Charitable Foundation Bursary and the London Arts Board, Development Fund for Artists.