Design Assembly

Is it just me or is anyone else completely obsessed with Anthony Gormley’s 4th plinth living sculpture ‘One & Other’ in Trafalgar Square?

I’ve been waking up wondering who’s up there and what they’re doing, when it rains, feeling sorry for the poor plinther and when the sun shines, planning what I would do if my name gets pulled out of the draw.

For anyone that hasn’t heard about it, Anthony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’ is a public art project where 2,400 people are taking turns standing on the 4th plinth for an hour each to create a living portrait for 100 days. Participants are chosen anonymously by a computer - aiming to represent the population of the UK proportionally by choosing a certain number of people from each region with an equal number of men and women.

Anthony Gormley with a model of the plinth with safety net

People can do anything they want while they’re up there, as long as it’s legal. It’s broadcast live online 24hrs a day (http://www.oneandother.co.uk) and the sponsor SkyArts is showing weekly highlights on tv. The set up works really well, a multitude of camera angles and microphones ensure they capture all the details, including the interaction and reactions from the crowd below, which is sometimes the most fascinating bit.

Ishvinder Singh Matharu, 31, an optometrist from Chigwell, throws a paper plane into the crowd

Victor Martinez, 37, a TV art director from London campaigns for less BNP more tea

A teacher reads messages for the world submitted by teenaged pupils at her school.

In the Guardian Guide on Saturday, Charlie Brooker called it ‘Big Brother: The Tate Modern Edition’. I think it’s much more interesting than Big Brother because these are normal people randomly selected, not chosen because they will perform or entertain (although some choose to). Its a portrait of the UK in 2009 showing the multi-cultural, diverse country we live in. Different nationalities, religions, ages, classes and occupations. It’s a snapshot of today’s fashion (which will be fascinating to look back on in 100 years) but also a snapshot of what’s important to people today. What people choose to do and say while they are up there forms a social/political portrait of the times.

So far I’ve seen people trying to raise money for Childline, Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis charities,  a man dressed as a toilet raising awareness for WaterAid, and on a much smaller scale, a woman campaigning to stop the closure of her local library.

Some have chosen to stand very still and statuesque as literal living sculptures, others have sat quietly reading books seemingly in their own little world. Some have made a point of interacting with the crowd below taking microphones up with them, while others have interacted with viewers watching online through their mobiles. The woman I’m watching climbing off the cherry picker onto the plinth right now has brought a giant inflatable sofa with her and is sat there with her feet up drinking coffee, eating cereal from the box, quietly looking down at everyone watching her.

It must be a very reflective, peaceful experience being up there, watching the crowds watching you - the ultimate exchange of ‘people watching’. Anthony Gormley tested it out the night before it went live and said, ‘Its incredibly intimate up here at night, thats what I can’t believe, its like being on an opera set.’

What I love about it is that rather than celebrating dead men from Britain’s past like so many other statues in London, he is celebrating what’s great about Britain today, the regular people, of all shape and sizes, ages and class.

Other highlights have included a town crier, an 83 year old pensioner signalling with semaphore flags, a designer using a folding pink bicycle to generate electricity to light up his suit, a guy proudly displaying the Welsh flag and a man sending money taped to balloons down into the crowd.

Scott Illman, 34, a bar owner from Hammersmith, London.

But is it Art? Anthony Gormley says in an interview on the SkyArts site, ‘I don’t care. I’m not a theatre director. In a sense this form is much closer to theatre than it is to sculpture, or its closer to anthropology, you could say this is very much like a classical anthropology exercise, where a sample human being is taken from their tribe and measured and photographed and asked to give a personal account of their way of life.’

He describes the moment someone hijacked the opening ceremony by climbing onto the plinth before the first woman was officially taken up there as, ‘the perfect opening gambit for the whole idea of the project - which is about celebrating our freedom of self expression.’

Jay Jopling from the White Cube says ‘Anthony Gormley once again has reinvented the way in which sculpture works in the public arena. Its a totally new take on public sculpture and its a totally new take on the idea of monument. This, I think, will turn out to be probably the truest portrait you can get of Britain.’

At the launch Mayor Boris Johnson said ‘We may have lost the people’s princess but now we have the people’s prince’. I think that is completely over the top, but in my opinion its definitely art and its a fascinating, brave project, great for putting London at the top of the art map. I only wish someone had thought of it 100 years ago so I could look back at people then.

Watch it live:

http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

Watch the highlights:

http://www.skyarts.co.uk/art-design/article/antony-gormleys-one-other/