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I am perfectly qualified to take part in London’s latest public-art installation, “One & Other”, by Antony Gormley. Not that the criteria are particularly stringent: applicants need only be over the age of 16 and living in Britain for the duration of the project. Having sent in my forms (applications opened on April 21st), I could be randomly selected to join a dynamic installation that tests, in the words of the artist, "what happens when you put real life into the idealised place of art”.

 

Gormley's idea is simple: a new person will occupy the Fourth Plinth in the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square every hour, 24 hours a day for 100 days, from July 6th to October 14th. The 2,400 participants, chosen at random by computer algorithm from every region in Britain, will each enjoy a moment in a lofty public space ("the height of a house", Gormley says) reserved for works of art. As of my writing, 9,110 people have already applied for the odd honour via the project's website.

 

The Fourth Plinth has hosted contemporary artworks commissioned by the city since 1999. Before becoming a showcase for new work by British artists, the plinth sat more or less empty for around 160 years, having been built for a statue of King William IV that was scrapped when the money ran out. Gormley's piece will follow Thomas Schütte’s "Model for a Hotel 2007", a colourful, light-refracting sculpture of layered glass that was unveiled in November 2007. 

 

One of Britain’s most successful public artists, Gormley has long been preoccupied with the human form. His own naked body recurs as a model in many of his earlier works, while later pieces incorporate the bodies of others. Like “Angel of the North” (1998), his stunning, 66-foot steel sculpture of an angel looming over A1 and A167 motorways into Tyneside, "One & Other" celebrates a single figure, though a far more modest, terrestrial one. But as Gormley wrote in the Guardian, his latest piece is "a logical extension of an engagement with the collective as opposed to the individual body." It furthers his interest in interactivity and public participation, which he has explored in such works as “Field” (1991-2003) and “Allotment” (1995).

 

“I worked for maybe 20 years using my own body as a sort of example of the human condition of embodiment," Gormley said at a press conference, "but I never felt I could talk for others, so I had to find a way of creating a situation where participation was possible.”

 

Plinth participants will be filmed continuously, their images streamed live online by Sky Arts, a broadcaster and the project's sponsor. This footage will then be cut into a "best of" weekly television show based on audience votes. The full recordings will be archived at the National Portrait Gallery and the London School of Economics, a 2,400-hour-long resource for the study of British society.

 

Gormley insists that "One & Other" is not all spectacle. He concedes that it uses the “idioms of reality TV”, but for a very different purpose. Rather than being simply about watching people look foolish, the project is “as much about what people learn about themselves by inhabiting this very particular place, and looking out at the world from that place, and seeing their own position within the world through it.”

If I'm selected, the plinth will be my oyster. So how do I want to be remembered? I can take anything up with me as long as I can carry it myself. Once I'm on the plinth I can do whatever I like, given it's legal (so no feeding the square’s famous pigeons). I don’t yearn to yodel or breakdance or preach, and I am quite fearful of heights. But I'm reassured by the surrounding net to catch me if I trip while juggling knives.

 

What if an image of me looking silly is beamed across the globe and watched by millions? Or worse, what if I stand on that plinth, alone before the world, and no one cares? Do I need to be entertaining? My anxiety seems to be part of the plan. Gormley himself admits he doesn't know what will happen, which is part of what excites him about this project.

 

"It's about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable," Gormley has said. "It could be tragic but it could also be funny." It's clear that he wants participants, not just performers.

The British press have got quite excited by the potential for exhibitionists to take advantage of the platform. Gormley has admitted that he “would be very upset if nobody took their clothes off.” But that's not really my style. So what will I do? I'm not sure yet, but I have a feeling that if I get my 60 minutes of fame, I will know just how to spend them.

 

 

 

Picture credit: © Cog Design

 

(Caroline Carter is an editorial assistant at Intelligent Life and The Economist.)