Message in a Bottle

A message in a bottle thrown into the sea in the US by a 12 year-old British holiday-maker has made it across the Atlantic and turned up on a Cornish beach. The message was thrown into the sea at Atlantic City, New Jersey by the girl, Alexus, from Durham on December 18 2006 and took a year to be found. It was blown ashore by recent gales. Beach rangers at Bude, North Cornwall, are appealing for Alexus to come forward to claim her bottle. Her handwriting has become so faded by sunlight during the 3000 mile Atlantic crossing that her full address can no longer be made out.

The Guardian , 22 December 2007

The Meeting

Notes made during the initial meeting in December 2007.

Interested in virtual performer / real performer. Exploring the theatricality of the everyday. Trying to find the magical in the mundane. Working with notions of self in collaboration. Inter-cultural exchange. Lab. Experiment. Identified a need for this in Nottingham. Message in a Bottle. No parameters. Ideas to follow up. Next opportunity. Bottles out to sea. Metaphors for exchange. Interested in both the virtual and the narrative. Skills exchange / shared vocabulary. Autopsy / Examination. Working outside of theatre space. Not bound my normal rules. Interested in absence / presence / loss. Interested in the spaces in between us. Where we don't meet as companies or as artists. Amateur / Academic. The Sound of Music. 1972. Mum was a Nun. Dad was a Nazi. Character Assassinations. Anti-theatricality. Interested in durational stuff. Installation / Exhibition / Stories of performance. House on a Hill. Six hours reading out cards. Travelling. Telling a story. Written on a train. Endurance test both for performer and the audience. Shared experience. The blog. Breathing life into words. Performance background. Talking to a computer code. Want to return to being a performer. Interested in interacting between performative and performance, technology and real people. Between using technology to enhance the experience. Total interaction. Interested in the incidental. What happens by accident. Using technology as a method of devising. Multi-media. Video projection. Motion capture. Infra-red. Backdrops. Confusion of virtual / real. Narrative structures in live context. Improvisation of virtual and real. Audio / visual work in unusual spaces. Installation. Graphic design. Relationship between motion and image. Atrophy. Seeds of ideas. Randomness. The Pilots came from idea of letters. Thinking about the distance they travel and the time they take to arrive. Back to the idea of Messages in a Bottle. Interested in working in in between spaces. In working together. In the gaps between us. In bringing us back to Nottingham.

The Idea

- Tomkins, C. (1996). Duchamp: A Biography. Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

The Readymade Residency is a collaborative of Nottingham-based artists working in the performing arts and / or with new technology. Initiated by Zoo Indigo Theatre Company and featuring members of Active Ingredient, Reckless Sleepers and Vent Media, the collaborative is a readymade skill-sharing opportunity. The first meeting in December 2007 brought together Rosie Garton, Barret Hodgson, Tim Ingram, Rachel Jacobs, Michael Pinchbeck, Ildiko Rippel, Matt Watkins and Mole Wetherell. Part-laboratory, part-playground for new ideas to be nurtured and developed, the inaugural Readymade Residency will take place in July 2008.

Image: Julian Hughes