Six hundred people needed to be part of a Tyneside work of art

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/feb/02/gateshead-newcastle-baltic-anthony-gormley-on-kowara

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For the third time in its ten-year history, the Baltic in Gateshead is appealing for members of the public to take part in one of its projects. For the first time, the participants will not be required to strip off in the name of art – previously 285 volunteers took part in Antony Gormley's Domain Field in 2003 and 1,700 in Spencer Tunick's mass nude photograph in 2005. This time the gallery needs up to 600 people to perform in On Kawara's epic One Million Years. The work consists of 20 volumes of typewritten dates, divided between Past and Future. Past is a list of years from 998,031 BC up to 1969 AD. Future starts with 1993 AD and ends with 1,000,992 AD. Two volunteers are needed for an hour and a half at a time to read aloud from each of the volumes over tenhours a day for the 60 days between March 1st and April 29th. The two volunteers will sit and read the work in the ground floor gallery of the Baltic. People wanting to volunteer should email onemillionyears@avfestival.co.uk Kawara was born near Tokyo in 1933, but measures his age in days rather than years, so he's now not far from his 29,000th day. For many of those days, several thousand times since 1966, he has added to his Today Series of Date paintings - each one consisting of the date on which it was made, painted in white on a plain coloured or black background. "One Million Years" is part of the North East's biennale AV Festival of art, technology, music and film, which this year has the theme As Slow As Possible. The programme includes 22 exhibitions in venues from the Tees to the Tyne, with 34 film screenings, 15 concerts, six walks and Radio Boredcast, a 744 hour continuous on-line radio broadcast. Included in the programme will be Locus+ working with artist Jonathan Schipper to create a slow-motion car crash (with the car moving at 7 millimetres an hour over the 31 days) while the opening ceremony includes Leif Inge's 9 Beet Stretch – a live performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony stretched over 24 hours with, apparently, no pitch distortion - at Newcastle's Star and Shadow cinema, and the festival closes with a Slowalk from the disused Spiller's factory in Byker led by Hamish Fulton. Anybody wanting to take part in "One Million Years" should email onemillionyears@avfestival.co.uk Here's a YouTube clip of 9 Beet Stretch to get you in the volunteering mood:

One Million Years by On Kawara: Baltic, Gateshead, March 1-April 29 AV Festival: venues in Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle, Gateshead and others across the North East, March 1-31