Londoners awoke on Monday morning with a unique art installation in their backyard: members of the public will be standing on the 168 year-old Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for one hour - 2,400 Plinthians will take turns to occupy the Plinth until mid-October. I’m a plinth applicant and a blogger for the project on oneandother.co.uk.
As you may know, the Project kicked off with an unexpected twist; an apparent saboteur took a running leap at the safety net and clambered on to the plinth before the organisers could reach for their walkie-talkies. The man who scaled the Plinth, Mr Stuart Holmes, was acting in the spirit of the project – he was there to protest against actors smoking in films – but he was not a certified Plinthian. Gormley rebuffed the man when he shouted down for a microphone: “You should have brought your own! That’s the rules!”. Thankfully, Holmes gave up his place for the first Plinthian, Rachel Wardell.
By the end of this week there will have been over 100 people on the Plinth. Here are three of my favourites from the first day:
Jill Gatcum: Releasing balloons with charity request donations attached. Her second party piece was inhaling helium from a canister and singing “follow the yellow brick road” in a munchkin voice.
Scott Illman: The heckling from the crowd began for Scott as he used the prime location to promote 2-for-1 cocktail offers at his pub, showing that Art and advertising is not a popular combination. As the JCB crane came to take him away he was heard to say “there was a really nasty man down there” - it’s a good thing he didn’t read what people were saying on Twitter….
Suren Seneviratne: Dressed in a Panda costume ‘custom’ made by his girlfriend, Suren held a placard with his mobile number on and then paced the plinth as he chatted to strangers on the phone. The pacing actually got quite extreme in what appeared to be an impression of a Panda on Redbull.
Watching the Pinthians on webcam is a harmless pass time, but I have to admit - Gormley has led me into a bit of an addiction. What started as keen interest in a unique art project, has rapidly led to plinth-stalking as I check the plinth pinth-cam every hour. The solution might be to cancel my Internet Service Provider. Having said that, there is live streaming of the project below, courtesy of the ‘One & Other’ website. Come rain or shine, there will be a Plinthian for you to view.
So now the project is well and truly underway, there is the looming question ‘is it Art?’. Divided opinions are already appearing in the media, some calling it “middle class big brother.” I don’t like Big Brother, I watched the first hour of series one (way back in 2000) and concluded then that watching people trying to scoop media deals was not entertainment. But perhaps there is a place in Art and Culture for ‘reality viewing’, i.e. the largely unedited documentation of reality. Previous television shows have used our fascination with this medium to their advantage; selecting people who provide shock-factor entertainment to boost ratings, which has given a very bad name to the medium that is ‘reality viewing’. I hope Gormley will change that trend. What do you think?
Whether you like it or hate it, ‘One & Other’ is here to stay for the next 97 days. So treat it like an unwanted relation visiting in the spare room, hogging the bathroom in the morning, or welcome it like an old friend, one who is going to stand on a plinth for your consideration.
Flickr image from tiredoflondon's photostream.
Exiled
Pro 
As far as artistic merit is concerned, conceptual art for the masses is innovative and fun, I don't agree that you should have to earn the right to go on the plinth, sorry..everyone should have the right to express themselves and this is what the plinth is about.
I believe 'Art' is anything that is visual, be it a performance, a painting or a cow pickled in formaldehyde. Whether it's good art or not is another matter entirely.