The charming Alastair McKimm pops in for a meeting with Simon Foxton (well, he's got to get free rent on a meetings space for all the work he's currently putting in, right?). But what have two stylists got to discuss? You'd think they'd be fighting for the same commission. They're not letting on...

Just to prove that projects seldom turn out as you first think, Nick Knight has rung from his holiday (he would say that SHOWstudio IS his holiday) to talk through the following potential amendments to Liberty Ross's project.

First of all, cast your mind back to the pre-production meeting for SITTINGS: THIRTY MEN, Simon Foxton's project. Or, indeed, have a look at the film of it. Towards the end, Simon Foxton slipped Nick a sheaf of tear-sheets from a porno mag, depicting women in various states of undress from clothed to naked. Well, these have inveigled their way into Liberty's project, possibly providing a solution to the unresolved matter of what would be the *motivation* for the live event. Reading between the lines, the piece will now act as a sort of 'fashion tug-of-war' between viewer and photographer, where we will give viewers options to dress Liberty and Nick will gradually undress her, photographing her throughout, until she is ready to be re-dressed for the next shot.

So, this is less 'Living Doll' (previous working title), than 'Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down' (Nick's creative rememberance of title for the Almodovar film). Of course, none of this is yet confirmed and as Liberty is planning to return to LA before the shoot, it could push the event back to the start of June.

Maybe you caught details about our 'living photographs' by Simon Foxton and Liberty Ross 'dress-up model' live events published in the new issue of UK Vogue.

To keep you in the know, Liberty's is currently scheduled as a live event in early June, but there will be plenty to see prior to this, as you will see the project unfold over the coming month. We expect to officially open the project in two weeks with video of last week's pre-production meeting with Liberty, creative clues in Nick Knight's reference images, and film footage from five years of photoshoots with Ms Ross. For now, scroll back through the diary below, to see previous updates about this project.

Simon's 'living photographs' project is called SITTINGS: THIRTY MEN and is now halfway through on day fifteen. There's a lot of catching up for you to do in this one, so look in the Current Projects list below, and go right in now where Arthur is waiting for you.

Heston Blumenthal's famous restaurant and culinary laboratory 'The Fat Duck' has been named best restaurant in the world. Download one of his expectation-defying recipes published as part of his contribution to last year's BANQUET project.

Those who come to the site regularly will probably have already noticed that we've made some tweeks to the design and functionality of the site. These reflect some of the feedback we've had from users, as well as our personal feelings about how the site 'works'.

The more prominent changes are a left hand navigation on the home page, the formatting of the forum in a more standard way, and the movement of the contact functions of the forum to a separate about us/contact section.

The left hand navigation comes from the feedback that the site isn't as easy to use as before. This is a difficult problem to address, as it assumes that the site has a specific use rather than being an ongoing experiment. Wheras many of our visitors presume that the purpose is to access our projects, part of the purpose is documenting the process of creation, and this was unworkable within previous site versions.

The intent with our current design is to bring the process forward on the site, but we did this at the expense of obvious and immediate access to the projects. Most people commented that they found the site more approachable and easier to comprehend, but some were loathe to see SHOWstudio move on from what they were familiar with. We hope that we've rectified access to our projects to some extent by clearer signposting and navigation, allowing people to get their quick fix on the site, and that other visitors will continue to follow the web of trails we've started to develop through our regular updates.

The forum changes, I hope, are pretty self explanitory. We realised that visitors to the site were being overloaded by choices on the forum page from the way it was presented - as evident by the number of messages directed to me in the forum, some that were most certainly not for my attention. The intent of the original forum was to encourage discourse with the SHOWstudio team, as well as with each other, but this wasn't working.

The answer was to move this contact into it's own section, expanding out the contact section to allow you to contact 'us' and find out about 'us'. The rationale isn't self-massage of our ego's, but rather to try and help our audience familiarise themselves with who we are and what we do, and provide a bridge across which they feel they can communicate with us about the ongoing project that is SHOWstudio (and perhaps take some of the weight off of Penny's inbox)

There are numerous other small changes, and some bug fixes, throughout the site.

However we are always working on the development of the site, and we are aware of a number of outstanding issues that we have to address, so please continue to give us your feedback, contstructive criticism is always gratefully received.

The interpretative essay has arrived and been added to Simon Foxton's ever encyclopaedic project. Read Michael Bracewell's careful consideration of the issues raised by 'Sittings' in relation to its broader cultural context, and to the work of Andy Warhol and Sam Taylor-Wood.

We realise that for most of you, the SHOWstudio space will be in pitch darkness for most of your viewing time; our night being your day. Dorian Moore's got the projector going on a test to see how a random scroll of the last 100 forum entries might look, cast over the studio wall. The gain on the camera's bound to burn the words out as it gets darker outside, but here goes for starters.

The consensus in here is that today's portrait is particularly special. Armando's Dries get-up is pretty dapper, but it's the dusty pink and sage combo that gets me. Think: late 1940s kitchen design. Whilst remembering: poor model Armando has to perch on top of the David Chipperfield futon (that's been the saviour of several late-night SHOWstudio staff members) all day, answering your phone messages. At least he seems to put a brave face on it.

As if today's sitting wasn't enough of a treat! Simon Foxton's long-awaited Scrapbooks section has finally been added to the project. Put your children to bed and click here for more.

The second project of the new regime - Liberty Ross's project- is now open. Click the 'attractor' picture of Liberty at the top of the page or on the 'click to view this project' link below to reveal all. As with Simon's project, the piece has several components, many of which are yet to evolve. For now, though, we have a new 'ask Liberty' section, where each day the model will answer one of your questions from her LA residence. Although 'Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down' is taking the overall theme of 'control', Liberty makes no stipulations: ask her whatever you like! This activity joins existing elements including the pre-production meeting, the project brief and relevant blog entries.

Coming soon are film clips documenting Liberty's 'life on-set' over the past five years and a new video project of the model's making. Also an exciting new downloadable garment (can't say who but it's good)!! Oh, and we have a new date for the live event: not too specific though - between the 28th and 30th June.

Questions have been flooding in already for Liberty Ross. We have sent them all on to her in LA, so keep cheking within the project to start gleaning her answers once she posts them.

With Simon Foxton's live sittings having finished on the last day of the month, now all eyes are on Liberty Ross's project. Many of you have sent in questions: the first of her responses is posted inside the project, here.

Congratulations to 'Best Fashion Website' winners Alexander McQueen who are now furnished with a Webby. Well done also to the architects of this success - those shy boys at POKE - of course, who brought this fact to our attention...

With the end product of the 'Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down' project being very much about control, Nick Knight wanted Liberty Ross to have some input during the run up to the live event and asked her to produce some videos. Liberty sent us some great clips of different sections of her body (created by Liberty each day) and suggested using them like a flip book. It's a great idea and got me thinking about making a simple toy that allows you to mix and match the different clips to create a moving 'consequences' or 'exquisite corpse' game.

I was concerned about how the clips fit together but after lots of testing and gathering opinions from people I am happy with the look we've got, in terms of it resembling a 'complete body'.

Liberty is very keen to have sound on each of the clips that would then mix when you play them together. I think it's a nice idea but adding sound makes the clips bigger which means there is more of a wait when downloading a new section. If the wait is too long then it won't be fun to use but maybe I can compress the sound further...

Liberty has already sent us three great sets of videos so when we launch it tomorrow there will be something there to play with.

We're still discussing a title with Liberty Ross, but her interactive is now launched here (and it's getting more erotic by the day). Our Liberty knows no restraints!

Project Caption:
Watch what happens when a model that is used to being directed takes control of her representation. Each day, Liberty Ross sends in three video clips of the three sections of her body that make up a full-length portrait, which will be fed into this random generator. Using the arrows, flick through the layers to discover the myriad of self-authored looks beneath and see what models get up to when there are no stylists, creative directors or photographers around to intervene!

I have been mulling over an idea motivated by our core twin interests in the potential of 'live-ness' and the 'creativity in process' that would involve curated coverage of the flourishing scene of artists that include performance in their practice, and incorporating certain music events that also have an acute influence on this culture. Donald Urquhart, who contributed brilliantly acerbic text and imagery to our Leigh Bowery GUISER project last year, put on an event this week that combined performance, music and drawings. On Wednesday night his influential 1990s nightclub 'The Beautiful Bend' was celebrated with a one-night revival in the bar of the ICA, London. By his own admission Donald has come a circuitous route to his current art world context (including his nomination in the current Beck's Future's show at the ICA) that now welcomes in the spirit of the nightclub where he originally and unwittingly honed the visual practice that is being considered anew in the gallery context. Donald's feminine club host persona was very elegant in striking oversize wooden necklace and Hollywood grooming, and his audience reeled around in splendid abandon, their rainbow costume colours providing the right ornament to Donald's monochrome posters. Blown-up and displayed large, they were ripped down in a careful frenzy at the end of the night to be savored as the must-have souvenir of a decade of vaudeville energy. I wonder if it is possible to capture the provocative, uncompromising energy of this kind of event satisfactorily? I certainly joined in my own capture of the creative aesthetic by taking a poster or two...