What do you get if you cross Big Brother, an art installation, and Speaker's Corner? It's Antony Gormley's radical idea for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square of course. The so-called One & Other project, which began today, will see a total of 2,400 people occupy the plinth for an hour each, 24 hours a day, until 14 October.

If you're wondering why, artist Gormley has described the project as "a form in which our freedom of self-expression and freedom of speech is celebrated and extended". So there. More interestingly, from a technology perspective, the entire thing is being streamed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on a web site specially created in partnership with Sky Arts. And the plinthers are microphoned-up, so you can even hear their words of wisdom.

Sneak isn't sure how many people are actually watching it over the web, but it must be more than are standing in Trafalgar Square seeing the real thing. So far it seems a man in a giant panda suit, and another in a straw hat reciting William Blake and, erm, Jamie T poetry are not a big enough draw. However, the whole event has not been without incident. After a protester invaded the opening ceremony, several visitors to the web site have left messages complaining the live web feed is not working.

"Many people from around the world on Twitter are having problems watching it. The lag is terrible," wrote one. Another wrote, "Completely depressed, having just wasted 20 minutes of my life watching two people, seemingly bereft of any idea what to do... A jerk on the street is still a jerk on the plinth." Wise words. Sneak is now looking forward to logging on after pub closing time to see if it gets a bit more interesting.

06 Jul 2009