Gormley puts public on pedestal
Anthony Gormley explains what his Fourth Plinth piece is all about.
| By Lawrence Pollard BBC World Service |
Antony Gormley's commission for Trafalgar Square's "empty plinth" will see it occupied for 100 consecutive days, 24 hours a day, by members of the public.
To get an idea of what Antony Gormley is planning for Trafalgar Square try standing on the nearest park bench, parapet or bin.
Instantly people will notice you, grin, look worried, move away or, more alarming still, come over for a closer look.
I tried it for about 30 seconds when I met the sculptor next to the Fourth Plinth and it was an unnerving experience.
 |  Putting real life in the place of idealisation, of the hero, and we have no idea what people will do  Antony Gormley |
Standing on a bench a mere couple of feet above passers-by made me feel a bit of a target, a bit of a manic street preacher and frankly, a bit of a fool.
Yet, Mr Gormley wants members of the public to volunteer to stand for a whole hour, 25ft up on top of the plinth in one of Britain's busiest public spaces.
They will of course, be art.
"The idea is very simple, I'm going to take you, and put you up there," he explains to me, pointing up the granite of the plinth.
Life as art
Laughing, he describes the plinth as offering a space somewhere between a go-go dancer's platform and an interrogation suite.
"You stand on the plinth for an hour and you become a symbol, or a metaphor," he says.
"Putting real life in the place of idealisation, of the hero, and we have no idea what people will do. That's the experiment, the excitement."
The practicalities revolve around a website which shares the project's name - ONEANDOTHER.CO.UK.
 Antony Gormley wants people to turn themselves into art for an hour |
Interested members of the public register, the computer then chooses a representative cross section of 2,400 names.
They are matched to the 2,400 hour-long slots on the plinth which run 24 hours a day from July to October.
Each individual will be fork-lifted up 25ft to spend their hour in full view, with no banister or barrier to protect them, other than a safety net skirting the plinth.
Then they can do exactly what they want, while being lit, filmed and recorded for an archive Mr Gormley hopes will produce a portrait of Britain.
As he was explaining the plan I began to think of what could go wrong - could it be hijacked, or become the scene of political protest and personal breakdown, or just make the "plinther" a target for abuse or projectiles?
Despite the endless frightening possibilities, Antony Gormley remains remarkably sanguine.
There will be a security presence, but otherwise participants can make a protest, juggle, shout, basically do as much as they like with the platform - or as little.
"I'm just as happy for someone to do absolutely nothing. They could have a kip for an hour or just stand there. I think that's enough," he says.
"The difference between this and theatre is the unpredictability, and that its about the condition of sculpture. You ask life to occupy the condition of sculpture, exposure, the elements, time, scrutiny."
Serious commitment
Ah. Scrutiny. It's not a bronze cast up there, it's an exposed human being.
And that's the unknown element which I fancy Mr Gormley likes the most.
What would you do on the Fourth Plinth?
When I stood up on that bench in front of him I felt surprisingly uncomfortable, vulnerable and a bit threatened.
What happens if a "plinther" gets scared, or caught short, or it starts howling a gale? Can they pop down?
"No they can't. They've got to stay up there. It's a serious commitment. We're making a sculpture here with an hour of someone's time."
Antony Gormley is one of the most successful creators of public art, anywhere.
Large metal casts of his own body are the basis for the famous Angel of the North in Gateshead, the 100 figures washed by the tide on a beach near Liverpool and the statues he placed on random roofs around central London last year.
Now he wants our body, our time and our presence on the empty plinth.
| We'll be making living bodies into representations and hopefully people will tell us about that journey Antony Gormley |
As he walked away in his fluorescent cycling jacket a crowd of teenagers began shouting at him.
"Antony Gormley! We love you! Woo! Woo!"
I was astonished. Other than Rolf Harris, I've never seen an artist recognised in public and serenaded.
But let's suppose you have gone out to find a bench and are standing on it now. Are you a sculpture yet? What are you? How do you move from Life to Art?
"You've moved from being a citizen pavement walker to being a representation," he says, explaining that those on the plinth will be representations of the human condition.
"We'll be making living bodies into representations and hopefully people will tell us about that journey. But you know, just to stand is enough."
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The peanut detectives
The peanut detectives
| By Peter Jackson BBC News |
Pick up a random product from a supermarket shelf and there is a reasonable chance it will display the warning "May contain nuts".
Some consumer groups say the label is over-used and unnecessary, undermining more valid warnings and designed to cover the backs of the manufacturers.
But food producers disagree, arguing it is irresponsible not to warn people who may have extreme reactions.
Peanut or tree nut allergies have almost tripled over the past decade, with one in 50 children in the UK now afflicted, according to The Anaphylaxis Campaign. In 2007, five people died from anaphylactic shock caused by an adverse reaction to food, the latest official figures for England and Wales show.
 Charges against Paul Bentley were dropped, leaving him to walk free |
Nowhere is the humble peanut more feared than in the food industry, as highlighted in the case of engineer Paul Bentley.
Mr Bentley, 42, of Nottingham, had been accused of scattering peanuts around a food factory where he was an employee, after being disciplined. The factory had to be closed and cleaned at a cost of
Monday, February 23, 2009
Journey's end for Flight Simulator
Journey's end for Flight Simulator
 FSX replicates real airports |
It's supposed to be the computer game that grown-ups can own up to playing.
For years, Microsoft's Flight Simulator set the standard. Initially, the bar was low as the processing and graphics power of early home computers - like Sinclair's rubber Spectrum - struggled with the demands of replicating global air travel.
But in the early 1980s, as others were still guiding blips across black-and-white screens playing Pong, the thrill of attempting to land a single-engine Cessna, in colour in Flight Simulator's first iteration, was fun unsurpassed.
Never mind that it looked as if the instrument panel in your plane was cardboard stuck on with superglue and the runway facing you was a single dark strip in a featureless yellow field - and that was supposed to be Heathrow. You just had to use your imagination.
| What every simmer dreams about is being called on to land an actual plane in an emergency.  |
Twenty-seven years and many updates later, FSX - Flight Simulator Ten - uses the muscle of today's high-end PCs to reproduce faithfully most of the world's airports in millions of colours in minute detail. Cities and landscapes look exactly as they do from the air in real life and air-traffic control instructions for final approach crackle continuously, and often confusingly, over the cockpit intercom.
And still the appeal remains a mystery to many.
With today's computer games, you can wipe out an entire German Panzer division, navigate Formula One's most challenging circuits and manage your football team in the European Championships, all without leaving the comfort of the chair at your PC. So flying an imaginary Boeing 757 from Stansted to Sarajevo in real-time can seem pretty tame.
But later versions of Microsoft FS do seem to "flight simmers", as we are known, to be just like doing the real thing. And more importantly, those who actually do the real thing say it's like that too.
Passenger applause
As one real-world pilot writes: "As a pilot, I use Microsoft Flight Simulator for training scenarios and often fly to a new airport virtually before flying there for real."
Of course, what every simmer dreams about is being called on to land an actual plane in an emergency. A trembling stewardess announces over the public address that both flyers upfront are suffering debilitating convulsions from the in-flight catering and has anyone flown an Airbus before?
"Er, not really but
Friday, February 20, 2009
How not to design a work uniform
How not to design a work uniform
| By Jon Kelly BBC News |
It is the final insult for many wage-slaves everywhere. Itchy nylon; fiddly clip-on ties; garish corporate branding - if any aspect of one's job can make it a trial of drudgery and alienation, it is surely the bad uniform.
Designed as it may be to eradicate individuality and project a harmonious, unified image of a company or organisation, few of us would, by definition, choose to don one of our own volition. That uncomfortable shirt or impractical hemline can make the clock's hands inch painfully slowly to 5pm.
|  Remember Philip Treacy and Anne Tyrrell's Tube uniforms?  |
Enlarge ImageBut design-conscious workers are in a militant mood. Nearly 500 blouses sent to female staff on the National Express London to Edinburgh rail route were returned after their union complained the garments were "too thin and too cheap", not to mention practically "see-through".
It's a sobering reminder for designers everywhere: however chic that outfit may look on the page, no matter how much it may be feted by one's peers come the next Milan Fashion Week, it still has to be worn whilst pushing a trolley-load of crisps and sandwiches past a carriage full of West Ham fans on the 2030 to King's Cross.
'Not listening'
For designer and former BBC Clothes Show presenter Jeff Banks, such considerations are a stock-in-trade. Having designed workwear for Barclays, Butlins, Abbey National and BAA, Banks believes that the perfect uniform is a marriage of practicality and corporate identity.
| YOUR WORST UNIFORM Got a fashion howler from one of your previous jobs? Send us a picture to yourpics@bbc.co.uk And we'll feature the best of the worst |
He says he will discuss every aspect of every brief with employees, making sure that - for instance - pregnant women and members of different ethnic and religious groups will not face any obstacles from his clothes.
As a result, Banks believes that not paying enough attention to those who will actually have to wear the garments is where many companies fall down.
"Not listening to the staff is the basic, fundamental mistake - they're the ones who actually know how to do the job, after all," he says. "You want to communicate a brand, but you don't want workers to feel uncomfortable in any way.
"British Airways staff look as though they work for a building society rather than an airline. For a while the London Underground tried to make its employees look as though they worked for some kind of French railway - thankfully, they got rid of those eventually."
|  As soon as I see the words 'designer does uniform', I groan Imogen FoxThe Guardian |
Following on from the trail blazed by Banks, a number of high-profile designers have been brought in by High Street brands to revamp their uniforms - with varying degrees of success.
In 2008, Bruce Oldfield's outfits for McDonald's female staff included a jaunty scarf which, while no doubt adding a frisson of Parisian hauteur to the fast food experience, probably made leaning over the barbecue sauce a precarious experience. Paul Smith's orange-hued attire for employees at the Tate must surely have led art lovers to question whether they had inadvertently strolled onto an easyJet flight on their way to the Cezanne exhibition.
And indeed, not every style pundit is a fan of meshing the worlds of high couture and honest labour. Imogen Fox, deputy fashion editor of the Guardian, believes the catwalk and the workplace should be kept firmly apart.
"As soon as I see the words 'designer does uniform', I groan," she says.
 The man-made fibres, the neon glow... the uniform at its highest expression |
"It's always going to look outdated. It's always going to look like it's trying too hard. Uniforms are meant to be functional - as soon as you get away from that, something is going to go badly wrong."
Indeed, many workwear manufacturers make a virtue of keeping it simple. Debbie Leon, Director of Fashionizer Ltd, which has designed garments for clients including London's Westfield shopping centre, says staff prefer natural, breathable fabrics and outfits that have been user-tested for practicality, to big-name labels.
"Trends in uniforms come and go, but it's the business of good designers to come up with fresh and creative designs that actually work in the real world," she adds.
It's advice that those tasked with draping the nation's workers would do well to heed. Especially if they do not wish to incur the ire of the ladies of the East Coast Main Line.
Got a fashion howler from one of your previous jobs? Send us a picture to yourpics@bbc.co.uk and we'll feature the best of the worst?
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Kissing cousins
Kissing cousins
 It's hard to remember who's who today, but it was even tougher for the Victorians |
My elder sister rings and asks if I've heard the sad news about Cousin Gerald. It doesn't take me a moment to realise that this is a test. Over the years my sister has become the custodian of our family's history. She not only knows the names and ages and addresses and personal predilections of aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and first, second and third cousins, but also jumps at any chance to display her superior genealogical knowledge.
"Cousin Gerald," I say, desperately trying to picture our family tree and locate a branch named Gerald. "You know," says my sister. "Harold's eldest. The one who went off with Grace after Uncle Ron died. He's your first cousin."
| FIND OUT MORE  Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesdays or 0030 on Mondays |
The only name I can grab hold of in this litany is Harold. Uncle Harold, Dad's brother. The one who my mother didn't care for because he smoked a smelly pipe and always stood with his large bottom towards the fire so no-one could ever catch a glimpse of the warm flames.
"Ah, Harold's eldest," I say with just enough assurance to suggest that he is rarely from my thoughts.
"Yes, Cousin Gerald. He's had a bad skiing accident in Canada.""Really," I say. "And will he be well enough to get back home?" "He is home," retorts my sister. "Cousin Gerald lives in Canada with Grace. He's lived there for nearly twenty years."
I mumble something about confusing him with another cousin but my sister isn't listening. She has more urgent matters to address. "Now," she tells me, "you may not remember Cousin Gerald but he was always very fond of you. And so it would be very nice if you were the one to ring Michael and give him the sad news."
| I can only be grateful, I suppose, that my family is not even more complex name here |
"Michael?"
"What is the matter with you today? Michael is Gerald's son. The one doing metallurgy at Leeds. Your first cousin once removed. But when you ring Michael - yes I'll give you the number again - when you ring Michael, whatever you say, don't ask him to pass on the news to Simon because as you'll remember he hasn't spoken to Simon ever since he dumped Alexandra and went off with his so-called researcher."
"Simon dumped Alexandra?"
"I just said that. So you'll do that little thing for the family?"
"Yes," I said. But I lied. I still haven't quite found the time or energy to ring my first cousin once removed and tell him that his father, or my first cousin, has had a skiing accident in Canada and that he's the first one of the family to know because of course.I haven't mentioned a word about it to my other first cousin once removed, Simon.
I can only be grateful, I suppose, that my family is not even more complex. Imagine trying to cope with some of those upper middle class Victorian families - families like Charles Darwin's - where marriages to your own cousins were positively encouraged.
If I can't even manage Harold and Gerald and Michael and Simon, how would I ever cope with the product of such cousin marriages - or, heaven help me, cross cousin marriages - in which a mother's brother's daughter could at the same time be a father's sister's daughter?
It all rather reminds me of that old musical hall song. How did it go? "If your father was your mother would your sister be your brother. Remember dad on mother's day."
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Thursday, February 19, 2009
Learning to Live
Learning to Live
Excerpt from Learning to Live (1964) - courtesy of the BFI
| STOP LOOK LISTEN The Magazine's sex education film festival |
This film is neither one thing nor the other.
It is not completely consistent with the simple moralising of earlier films, but at the same time it never really recognises the approaching age of sexual liberation.
Learning to Live combines both footage of teenagers socialising with animations explaining the biology of reproduction.
| STOP LOOK LISTEN  The Magazine's sex ed film festivalFive excerpts from films from the BFI's DVD The Joy of Sex Education - one a day for a week. The films so far: |
It's clear that the makers wanted to take a reasonably modern stance, with the narrator insisting that a moral tone is not the aim.
But this is contradicted by a number of assertions in the script.
"We must recognise that our society accepts the married state as right and regards sexual intercourse outside marriage as irresponsible and possibly disastrous," says the narrator.
The film is also full of lines that may cause raised eyebrows among the modern viewer, particularly in its description of the effects of puberty.
"She will find that a well developed bosom becomes a part of her charms
Monday, February 16, 2009
The joy of sex education
The joy of sex education
| STOP LOOK LISTEN The Magazine's sex education film festival |
Remember sex education films? Remember feeling a little on the embarrassed side? Jude Rogers takes a nostalgic look back at a state-enforced rite of passage, while at the bottom of this page you can find Whatsoever a Man Soweth, the first of our sex education films drawn from a DVD collection from the British Film Institute.
When did you first find out about the birds and bees?
Did your parents sit you down and explain the mechanics of how you were made? Or did a friend giggle like mad while they whispered to you about the things they had learned from their big sister or brother?
| Young military men were warned about the dangers of loose women, and how venereal disease would spoil them in the eyes of their family and country |
Or were you one of the innocent souls who learned about mummies, daddies and babies on a screen in your classroom?
Learning about sex is a momentous part of any child's life, and sex education is a tricky business indeed - especially for the teacher burdened with the task of telling schoolchildren what exactly goes where. But in decades past, some help was at hand from the overhead projector, the video recorder and the sex education film.
Sir or Miss would inevitably be hovering by the play button with a crinkle in their brow, not knowing whether their pupils would laugh, blush or keel over at what happened next, but their mission to unleash the lessons of a lifetime began here.
Sinful desires
And the roots of the modern sex education film go back a long way.
Early examples were deeply moral movies made in the shadows of war, where young military men were warned about the dangers of loose women, and how venereal disease would spoil them in the eyes of their family and country.
In other films, teenage girls were told that their sexual desires were sinful, and that they would be blamed for their unwanted pregnancies. Rarely were men or women given any practical advice about contraception, or told how they could manage these feelings themselves.
 She's unhappy because she had sex out of wedlock |
But after the 1960s, things started to change. The contraceptive pill, sexual liberation, and the first waves of feminism started to change social attitudes towards the genders, and sex education films became less heavy-handed.
Many were gentler affairs, where sex was characterised as an enjoyable activity in a natural world - one in which animals and plants also mated happily. But nature was king, and sex could only be blissful when reproduction was its intention, with personal pleasure being a fortunate bonus.
 They're happy because they waited till they were married |
As ever, there was a fear that sex education films would encourage sexual interest - and initiation - among younger people. But even in the 1970s and 1980s, most of them did the opposite. These films were often shown to children in their last years at junior school, when they often had some ideas about sex already.
Many had snuck a look at a book or heard about sex from friends, while the more cavalier characters in class might have encountered pornography in magazines or in films. As sex education films often glossed over penetration into a sanitised narrative, smirks would accompany these films just as much as grimaces.
The laughter didn't stop when dainty cartoons of the human anatomy showed what happened inside us, rather than between us. But occasionally, some films would show very progressive material. A few memorable films showed the experience of childbirth, prompting gasps and stunned silences and, in some cases, fainting.
Rarely did films show sexual acts. Dr Martin Cole's 1971 film Growing Up, is one of the few that broke with convention, showing masturbation and intercourse acted out by real people. By attempting to dispel the shame and guilt that clouded sexual behaviour, he received some positive feedback from teachers and pupils.
Novelty value
But the film also triggered national controversy. It was banned by Birmingham City Council and criticised heavily by the Sun newspaper.
Whatever their content, educational videos still had novelty value for children in the 1970s and 1980s. For starters, visual material was rare in schools, and it is easy to forget that televisions at home had only three channels until 1982.
 In the 1970s the protagonists became a lot hairier |
Sexual images and debate were also less common. There were tighter controls on TV and magazines, and the availability of sexual resources on the internet, both in terms of health and pornography, was still many years away. But these films also had novelty value for teachers.
While obviously saving them the embarrassment of explaining the mechanics of sex to minors, they also brought to their classrooms an engaging new tool. After a class watched a sex education film, and thought about the interesting images and ideas they had encountered, they could then pose questions to their teacher about what they had seen, and healthy debate could be encouraged.
In many cases, this actually happened.
Many would argue that sex education films are needed more than ever today, especially while teenage pregnancies continue to rise, and sex continues to be so prominent in popular culture.
And for those of us looking back to the sex education films of our childhoods, remembering messages both vivid and vague, it is obvious that any education is better than none - even if it might cause the odd guffaw or grimace.
This 1917 film warns soldiers against consorting with prostitutes
This stark and unpleasant tale is a bit more Shakespeare than sex education.
Made in 1917 to prevent Canadian soldiers travelling to World War I catching syphilis and other sexually-transmitted diseases, it tells the story of Dick, a plucky soldier in London.
We see Dick accosted by a prostitute in the street. As they talk another Canadian intervenes and warns Dick away from the woman, giving him the card of a doctor he can visit.
The doctor takes our hero on a tour of hospital wards where he sees the lesions and other unpleasant symptoms that syphilis can cause. Dick realises the ladies of the night are not for him.
But back in Canada, it is revealed that Dick's brother Tom has not been so lucky. The film shows a flashback of Tom being robbed by a prostitute and it becomes apparent that Tom's wife has caught syphilis from him.
Tom is cured of the disease, but when his wife gives birth, the baby is blind.
"The film - as the biblical title suggests - is essentially a straight sermon, a form that its target audience would have found familiar both from church at home and during their military service," says Bryony Dixon, curator of silent films at the BFI.
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