Jeremy Bailey: About Face

Jeremy Bailey – or his alter ego, Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey – returns to the Northwest this month as part of the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival, with his Master/Slave Invigilator System. This participatory, multi-user performance was premiered at Abandon Normal Devices (AND) festival in Manchester in 2012, returned earlier this year for AND in Liverpool, and will now be solving the problem of how to invigilate a whole festival, in Warrington. The work draws attention to the 'invisible' role of the gallery invigilator, as Bailey explains of his alter-ego: "He tried to reinvent the role of invigilator; the person who assists the public in understanding the work, [because] the role has become a glorified security guard over the years, it has diminished... I'm approaching the role of invigilator, and making it into a super-visible role, an ego-centric role," he says. He achieves this super-visibility by dressing his 'slaves' in striking futuristic costumes (designed by Manchester collective the Volkov Commanders) that feature a screen over the face, projecting the artist into multiple venues simultaneously.

The performance functions as a playful and humorous critique of how contemporary art galleries engage with the public, and it advocates a more reciprocal relationship. As with all Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey's work, Master/Slave Invigilator System also enacts and questions the role of technology in our lives – and in art – while playing with notions of visibility, invisibility and disguise. The slave invigilators' identities are concealed by a video-call direct from the artist, in a happily failing attempt to highlight their role: "The technology itself is not that impressive, and it shouldn't be,” Bailey says. “It's really the combination of all the things together that make a statement about a state of being that we all currently occupy. This demand has been placed on us to be everywhere at once and constantly available – increasingly, in my case, availability via video in some way. There's a tele-present forcefulness in society at the moment, but not everyone's using it!

“There's quite a hostility towards video,” he continues. “I notice that you chose not to make a video call in the first place,” he says, “because there's a protection in not appearing” – but I was glad I did eventually, when Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey appeared as a digital unicorn complete with majestic, flowing rainbow mane.

Bailey's use of local artists and performers as his invigilator slaves (with Volkov Commanders themselves occasionally taking part) has, he explains, led to modification of the costumes. “The first version was very uncomfortable to wear... we feel like it's important as we make modifications to know how the slaves feel.” During his performances in Warrington, Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey will move around the festival using his invigilator slaves like gadgets – “there's a black one and a white one. They are supposed to be like consumer products, i.e., the iPhone comes in black and white” – to engage with visitors. He explains that giving tours is the best part of invigilating, and so in solving the problems of invigilation – badly – the Master/Slave Invigilator System fails at this. The artist doesn't necessarily want to explain the art, however, and he says: “All art is very intimidating to audiences. I always say it's the only business where the audience or the customer is always wrong. Curators and artists are always complaining about audiences, but I have the opposite philosophy. I really love the people that I get to meet and talk to and be with, so I try to give them as much as I can and to learn about them as much as I can – and talk to them about art. It's not my job to tell, I'd rather connect.”