Talk and Performance by Jeremy Bailey

Description:

Western Front hosted an evening with Jeremy Bailey that explored questions around video performance, custom software, and the history of media art.

Bailey began his talk with a fifteen-minute performance that made use of the consumer gaming system Microsoft Kinect to reflect on Nam June Paik’s relationship to the invention of video art. Referencing Paik’s seminal video Global Groove (1973), Bailey demonstrated the motion sensing capabilities of the Microsoft interface by performing a dance to “Drop the World” (2009) by Lil Wayne and Eminem as a virtual avatar. 

The second portion of the evening included a lecture on the history of performance for the camera—from early video documentation of 1970s performance art to digital interfaces in the 2010s. Bailey situated his practice within this lineage by sharing examples of past multimedia video performances that made use of YouTube and custom software. His forty-five-minute presentation involved animated visuals and augmented reality, and closed with a question and answer period. 

Presented in partnership with the Surrey Art Gallery in conjunction with their group exhibition Electric Speed.