Fourth Plinth set for revolving door look

The first living statue, Rachel Wardell, will be lifted onto the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, twenty feet above the ground, by a hydraulic lift at 9am on Monday July, 6, 2009. Wardell intends to try and raise funds for the NSPCC.

A new member of the public is scheduled to sit/stand or otherwise occupy the plinth every hour, over the course of 100 days.

Some participants have promised to lay themselves bare to more than just potential ridicule - by occupying the fourth plinth in the nude.

The living statues are allowed to do whatever they want during their sixty minutes in the limelight, so long as they do not break the law. The fourth plinth will be surrounded by a huge safety net - to deter any wanna be jumpers.

The commission entitled One and Other is the work of Anthony Gormley, the controversial artist who is best known for the Angel of the North, in Gateshead in Tyne and Wear and his Another Place installation on Crosby beach, in Lancashire. Perhaps, 100 is a special number for Gormley - as there are 100 cast iron figures on the beach.

Gormley was quoted in today's Sunday Times as saying: "It's got a bit of the stocks about it. There's a public square with a body that isn't allowed to leave. This is a serious equipment."

Trafalgar Square has long been London's traditional public gathering place as listeners to the Palace Trail audio tour will discover. Hear about some of the acts of defiance that have taken place in the Square down the years and discover where London's most infamous pillory was located. To hear an audio sample from the Palace Trail please click here. The Palace Trail audio guide and the other four Walk Talk Tour London travel guides are available in English, Spanish, French and German.

Applications for some of the 2,400 slots are still open. For more information please click here.

The other three plinths in Trafalgar Square have permanent occupants. The statue depicting Hoartio Nelson - the victor at the Battle of Trafalgar over a combined French and Spanish Fleet in 1805 - is 5.2m high and is cast in bronze from captured French canons.

The National Gallery is pictured above.