The people's guide to the Turner Prize

"Mona Hatoum's wire-mesh cage is very, very clever. If you look directly at it, there's just a bulb swaying slightly between the cages. But if you're standing up talking to people, you feel they are moving up and down because the shadows keep coming up and down as the bulb moves. I don't think much of the video of the inside of her body, but the crowds are very interested in it. There's often a massive queue to go in there, just as much as to walk through Damien Hirst's cow. I think she stands a very good chance of upsetting the apple-cart and winning."

- John Kirk, 50, Tate gallery supervisor

"I've admired Damien Hirst for a long time, but I'd like Mark Wallinger to win. The Turner prize has become something of a statement for this country to make, so I think that someone who is engaging with British politics and commenting on British life needs to be brought to light. Wallinger has the bizarre Royal Family tradition of parading around Ascot up there on four TV screens and is actually getting people to think about it."

- Clare Cowie, 23, student

"Who do I want to win? I don't think I can differentiate between any of them. I just find myself quite confused about the whole thing. I go to art exhibitions a lot, but this didn't touch me at all. I really couldn't pick a winner, I feel so numb. What will stick in my mind is the feeling of wanting to be sick with the cow, and not being able to walk through the middle of it."

- Sarah Greene, 27, social worker

"It's probably my age, but I'd rather see live cows in the countryside than dead ones here. Like the film of the woman's insides, the cows are interesting but they don't seem to me be art. It's the same with the man on the explanatory video at the beginning [Damien Hirst] with the spinning discs that hurl paint. It's great, but he's got children doing it. The children's paintings look just as good as his. It's fun and I'd love to have a go at it. But with art you expect to think, 'Gosh, I couldn't do that.' With the spinning discs, I think I probably could."

- Valerie Dickinson, 52, primary school classroom assistant

"I love the simple approach the four exhibitors have taken. They're all dramatic. I particularly like Mona Hatoum's locker-room cages. The way that she's put them together and the illuminations on the wall are fantastic. I like the fact people have to walk around the outside of them. For me, the whole point is that you'd like to be inside them but you're not allowed to be. It's interesting also that her little video capsule allows you to go in, but a lot of people just stand outside and watch the film of her insides. And it would be wonderful to come here alone and just sit inside those cages contemplating who you are."

- Zak Cook, 23, management consultant

"Mark Wallinger's four videos of Royal Ascot shown together but taken in different years was very funny, because it's clearly the same every year. Maybe it's a one-gag idea, but I'd never thought of it. I've watched events like the Cup Final at Wembley several times, and I suppose if you analysed them too, you'd find the same thing year after year."

- David Galinsky, health and safety advisor, 32

"Going round the Turner Prize exhibition is a little like being shouted at. Wallinger's Ascot video and Hatoum's nether regions and, of course, the cows, demand attention. But they demand it in the same way small children do: never mind the sense, who can talk loudest? So I think you have to respect, and perhaps even feel a bit sorry for, Callum Innes. You could say his paintings are conceptual art like the others - the way he covers the canvases with paint, then removes it with white spirit. But he seems to have more technical accomplishment than some of the others."

- Giles Reid, 29, publisher

"Having seen endoscopy in the flesh, Mona Hatoum's video of her insides is disappointing. The image recreation isn't as good as you can get. The noises are excellent, though. Very frightening. It's very invasive because you see the camera going right from the outside of the skin, which is something that as a doctor you never normally would. I think Damien Hirst should win, though. The cows are excellent. They look really beautiful."

- Helen Holt, 24, doctor

"Mona Hatoum's wire baskets are lovely, but you can find that kind of effect in everyday life - light coming through the window, the sun moving around. You don't have to be in an art gallery. From a painterly point of view, I'd like Innes to win. The colours are so fresh, and they really make people look closely. But perhaps that's just me being a bit of a traditionalist."

- David Glover, 46, designer

I'm probably horribly old-fashioned, but I like the very delicate paintings by Callum Innes. That's who I'd award the prize to. There is a serenity about them, which there certainly isn't in a lot of the other things. The dead cows didn't hold any horror for me because of my farming background. What struck me was that, in a piece called Mother and Child, the cow hadn't actually got any udders. I don't know if that's just because you can't preserve that very well."

- Christine Ward, 52, teacher

To 3 Dec, at the Tate Gallery, Millbank, London SW1

What the critics say

"It has to be Damien Hirst. No one else is in the same league. He is not showing his best work this year, but he has completely changed the face of art in Britain. He has the same initials as David Hockney and his influence has been just as great". Andrew Graham-Dixon, Independent

"I don't care tuppence about the Turner Prize. The only one of them who is really an artist is Callum Innes, and I hope he gets a little bit more than tuppence for his work." Tim Hilton,

Independent on Sunday

"I'd like to see the earthy and poetic minimalism of Callum Innes win. His paintings are simply very beautiful. Damien Hirst should have won two years ago, but they missed the boat." John McEwen,

Sunday Telegraph

"Damien Hirst. Because if a prize like the Turner is to retain its credibility, it should go to the one of the four who has made the biggest splash. Personally, I would have no objection to Callum Innes winning. His painting looked much better at the Tate than at the Jerwood Prize, and he'd be the first painter to win for 10 years, which would be no bad thing." William Packer, Financial Times

"I've a suspicion Mona Hatoum may sneak it, but Damien Hirst ought to win. I see him as the heir to Francis Bacon. Both artists share that very British obsession with insalubrious events that take place behind closed doors. He throws open a window on a festering bottled-up world." James Hall, Guardian