23 October 2012

Having undertaken a residency at FACT earlier this year, we're looking forward to seeing more of Jeremy's work this week.

Bailey's work is driven by his research into augmented reality technologies and computer vision graphics. Utilising these technologies he produces works of trans-media and live performance that are both hilarious and as easily accessible to the pop-culture YouTuber as they are stimulating to the new media art buff. Check out Bailey's work and see for yourself at his YouTube channel.

Mixed media and performance artist Marisa Olson has characterised Bailey as "a video and performance artist whose work is often confidently self-deprecating in offering hilarious parodies of new media vocabularies." (Rhizome) Unlike much parody, however, the humour in Bailey's work does not come across as cynical.

Admitting that he looks at the majority of the world through his phone and laptop, Bailey explains that he "think[s] of these devices as I think of the glasses I wear to correct my nearsightedness, only they are not transparent, they are reflective." (Rhizome) Read more of Bailey's thoughts in his interview with Rhizome.

In one of his video works, titled Transhuman Dance Recital #1, Bailey transcends human form in order to exist in a superior world with an unidentified triangle. Explaining his actions and hopes for the future, he proceeds to dance for us in a way that mirrors the style of dancing one might encounter from a strange nerdy teenager in a comedy film - think Napoleon Dynamite meets Windows 97 screen saver. This, Bailey says, is the future of dance.

Bailey's Public Sculpture also displays his characteristic insight into the position of the new media artist. Responding to developments in art and technology, Bailey created new software that allows everyone the freedom to create their own virtual public sculpture.

Bailey's interest in public art is invaluable to discovering the place of the artist in public dissemination and broadcast. Questions are raised in the light of an increasingly privatised internet; will artists be restricted and watered down by the rise of global broadcast or is it really a freeing prospect?

Join us at Random Acts: Artist Interventions into Broadcast to discuss these issues and see Jeremy Bailey's highly anticipated augmented reality performance for the event!