“I often think that could we creep behind the actor’s eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.”
Sir Laurence Olivier
The Domesday book was a record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William the Conqueror who “… sent men all over England to each shire to find out what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth” (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). It was the survey of our kingdom and a record its wealth. Now 2009 another Domesday book is being put together of this Sceptred Isle. But, in our times of knowledge based wealth; it seems more appropriate that this survey is the gathering of the wealth of our visual DNA than of anything physical.
In our ‘Post, Post, Post Times’ , where the keyboard is our pen, and the monitor our paper. This Domesday project is collecting our visual/geographic data not by men on horse back, but through the embracing of all the tricks of social-media. The brain child of phenomenal artist Antony Gormley and arts event management group ‘artichoke’, This project known as One & Other ‘is an extension of the exploration of the connection between individuals.’ Antony Gormley its intention is to take different individuals from all over the country and use them collectively to represent a visual DNA profile of today’s British person.
One by one each individual will stand/sit/pose on the Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for one hour under the watchful eye of Nelson… (who’s visual DNA is still typical for a East Anglia boy) …
So… I find myself asking… how are they getting us to put ourselves forward?
For this project to work their campaign needs to get as many people to offer to represent each region (and financial demographic) , Can they? or it will be a typical middle England production? – Will the pull of our Big Brother instant celebrity climate, the idea of instant fame be enough pull Grandma away from her Bingo, Uncle out of his walled Glass office block, and mummy from making her Angel cakes? – I don’t know… I would like to say yes… but the truth is, if I ask my mum if she knows who Anthony Gormley is, she thinks I’m making a point to prove how she knows nothing about art… and if I ask her if she knows what the Angel of the North is ( I just did this right now) she stands in a crucifix form in-front of me and says - “it’s in Newcastle, but I can’t tell you who made it, why? are you testing me? or do you not know?”
What I find really interesting, from a social/new – media background is how they are making art out of social-media marketing and social-media marketing is making art. This campaign is a good old British raffle and it’s Spirit is the perfect antithesis to the Gunther von Hagens “body art project” where you have to be dead to be a participant in his ‘plastination’ portrait project.
So, I guess only the analysis of who, and how many applied in post production of this event will reveal the true nature of the DNA displayed on the Forth Plinth, and whether it’s reach was as thorough as the Domesday Book (which I think is an interesting question in its own right.) I’ve applied of cause – ( how could I not) and the question of what would I do If I am chosen as one of the 2400. Well, deep down something tells me I hope I do not have to answer that one, (quietly I’m wondering how long it will take until someone goes naked for a whole hour … illegal or not)… will find out soon enough… as well as what the nation brings with them as “toys” of entertainment as they stand, sit, contemplate, perform, or play for their Nation.
