British artist Fiona Banner shows a poster she has designed for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games  in London yesterday. Banner is one of 12 artists who have designed posters for the 2012 Olympics Games. The posters will go on sale to the public
Reuters/London

Bells will ring out across Britain on the morning of July 27 to mark the opening of the 2012 Olympics in London, part of a 12-week programme of cultural events celebrating the arts alongside sport.
Martin Creed, winner of the Turner Prize whose featured work that year comprised lights going on and off in an empty room, will create “Work No 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes”.
The work aims to involve thousands of members of the public ringing whatever bells they have at hand on the day the summer Olympics begin - from the largest church bells to those on bicycles and in school playgrounds.
“It’s by people and for people,” said Creed. “On the morning of the opening of the Games it’s a massive signal that something is happening.”
The concept was announced yesterday at the launch of the London 2012 Festival, a 12-week programme of concerts, exhibitions, films and live events across the United Kingdom to coincide with the Olympics.
The festival is the culmination of the longer four-year Cultural Olympiad, and both are designed to showcase Britain’s artistic heritage and boost tourism beyond 2012.
Leading lights of the art world will be involved, including singer Damon Albarn, playwright Alan Ayckbourn, Australian actress Cate Blanchett, American Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and artist Damien Hirst.
“Hosting the Olympics next year is an enormous opportunity for us to show the world just what a creative nation we have,” said Tony Hall, chair of the Cultural Olympiad board.
“In 2009 ... the economic times were quite rough, and looking around this morning ... they are rougher now,” he told reporters in London’s West End theatreland.
“But actually in a time of world economic crisis, I think we need art and culture even more than when the times are good.”
The festival will run from June 21 to September 9, the last day of the Paralympic Games. The Olympic Games run from July 27-August 12 and the Paralympic Games open on August 29.
Hall described the programme of hundreds of events, which will be expanded in the run-up to the Olympics, as an “extravaganza”.