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.

So Mr M Jackson passed way… uninsurable for his 50 gigs… @ the O2, he did not make his final curtain… my facebook… has been awash with thoughts and well-wishers, the radio airways playing different Jacko tunes. The UK charts showing a surprising number of downloads for only 4 days notice… Michael Jackson… is dead… and I wonder was he a puppet or a puppeteer?

So what does his death mean to me? His death is acknowledgement that this is the week; of all weeks which pronounces the death of traditional media – television broadcasting, editorial print & radio, with its replacement being social-media as the king (which we all already knew) – but we did not have a comparable benchmark to hang it off…

So why is the passing of MJ the bench mark? Well, in this week, while we have had some reason for a nostalgic trip about a tune, a feeling, a flush of intrigue about how an individual who grew up surrounded by the stardom created by media exploitation, who became such a global superstar – that he was given carte-blanch to make so many decisions, that he even managed to orchestrate the melt down of his own face! – While, back on planet earth… A nation of strangers… ( whose names we do not know) were using (social-media channel) twitter to shout out to the world, and gather and generate attention… for what was their nations reported injustice. 100s and 1000s of voices were reporting their own stories in bites of 140 characters – on a seemly “quiet” broadcasting medium.

#Iranelection
Iran election turnouts exceeded 100% in 30 towns, website reports

So… while the old school music blipped binary formations of mass music downloads on to digital music players, the rest of us listened and viewed the plight of the Iranian people on twitter – then watched as it (slowly) filtered through to the tv stations, and onto the broadsheets… One by one, people that I followed on my twitter account were changing their icons to green to show support, keywords were slipping through and messages of support were passing through all the media channels, to such an extent that it was impossible not to have some knowledge or awareness of what was going on in Iran.

So this Sunday morning as the MJ story, turned into a story, of how a story, about a story, is reported, because sensationalism sells – Facebook, and Google hurriedly announced a Persian language version of their sites… so that those nobodies, who were also making the news could have another channel to access and communicate to the world…. old mass-media is dead…. long live the the king.