On April 19th Wavelength has a play-date with quirked-out video performance artist Jeremy Bailey, and he's bringing his new toy. VideoPaint is a program that creates digital paintings, which respond the aural aspects of live music and to movement captured with a camera. And Jeremy is capable of some interesting movement. Though the U of T visual studies grad has skipped town for that artistic candyland, Syracuse NY, our prodigal artist will return to run for homecoming king and show off his chops along with Deep Dark United, Aimee Dawn Robinson and a lucky Wavelength audience. Evan Dickson picked his brain for more details.

TYPICALLY, I'M INTERVIEWING BANDS IN THIS SPACE, BUT YOU AREN'T A BAND, JEREMY BAILEY. WHAT ARE YOU?

I'm a visual artist. Mostly doing performance video with computers.

ON APRIL 19TH YOUR VIDEOPAINT PROGRAM WILL BE SHOWCASED IN A PERFORMANCE WITH DEEP DARK UNITED AND DANCER, AIMEE DAWN ROBINSON. WHAT IS VIDEOPAINT AND WHAT ROLE WILL IT AND YOU PLAY IN THE PERFORMANCE?

VideoPaint is an ongoing performance I created for this character that is a digital artist. He creates total symbiotic art systems as he calls them, basically new and innovative ways of using your body to create art. The whole thing is a parody of myself and other digital art geeks whose egos have been replaced by the newest software development kit. For this performance I will be using VideoPaint 3.0 to create live dance paintings in collaboration with the Deep Dark United whose music will affect dynamics of the painting environment. Hopefully what will result is both a critique of music driven visuals and also an awkward and funny performance by a naive artist.

HOW ELSE HAS VIDEOPAINT BEEN USED SINCE YOU CREATED IT?

I've used it in a few ways, most notably to tell silly stories like Bob Ross did on his public television show, but also to talk about the way we use art to abstract issues we can't seem to address directly, like racism, transgression, and sincerity among other things.

YOUR VIDEOS ALL INVOLVE INTERACTION BETWEEN A LIVING PERSON ON VIDEO AND SOME KIND OF DIGITAL ELEMENT LIKE THE PAINT BRUSH IN VIDEOPAINT OR THE SWARM OF CURSORS IN 'œDON'T MOUSE AROUND.'? TELL ME ABOUT THE BLURRING OF PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL REALITY IN YOUR WORK.

That's my starting point for everything. There is this period in the 70s when video art first appeared where artists developed this mode of thinking of the camera as an extension of their body. They called it performance for the camera, as opposed to performance for an audience which was the primary context for performance before recording devices came along. I think that since then things have changed in that computers are now the extensions of our bodies, not just cameras.

ANOTHER COMMON ELEMENT TO YOUR VIDEOS THAT I ENJOYED WAS YOUR TONGUE-IN-CHEEK SELF-ANALYSIS WITHIN THE WORK. DO YOU THINK ART ANALYSIS IS A JOKE?

I think that almost all art can be taken as a joke because by nature it is wrought with subjectivity. What may be the most serious thing to you, let's say Spiritual Centering, may be the most hilarious thing to me. When this thought first occurred to me I realized the most effective way to communicate may be by being self critical of my personal impulses. Whatever is left in tact probably carries some weight.

YOUR MOVEMENTS IN YOUR VIDEOS REMIND ME OF A HYPERACTIVE SIX YEAR OLD. CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO SOME SPASTIC DANCING AT WAVELENGTH?

YES. Lots.