Work of art is reading by numbers

The glass box is under three metres high and five metres long

A man and woman are sitting inside a glass box at the foot of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square as part of a new art installation.

They are reading extracts from a book of 271,000 even and odd numbers.

Sixteen performance artists working in pairs and shifts are taking part in the installation which is the creation of Japanese artist On Kawara.

Reading One Million Years is being shown by the South London Gallery in Peckham to mark its revamp.

In these books the whole of human history is reduced to a few pages Margot Heller, director of the South London Gallery

The artists began reading in the glass structure, which is under three metres high and five metres long, at 0800 BST on Monday.

They will read selected dates from 998,031 BC to 1,001,980 AD which have been taken from On Kawara's books.

He made 20 books containing two million years for the work One Million Years, which he started in 1969 but has worked on intermittently since.

Margot Heller, director of the South London Gallery, said: "On Kawara's work speaks simply and directly about a subject relevant to us all, the passage and marking of time.

"In these books the whole of human history is reduced to a few pages."

The installation, which will be dismantled at 0800 BST on 5 April, is timed to coincide with the start of British Summer Time.