(above: Barry attempts infamous sawing in half trick, Live Art Here, Here Gallery, photo by Deb Weinreb)
==============================
Barry the Badger was dreamed up during the Artcast project last year to create exposure for the residency. Initially it started with a man dressed inside a big badger outfit doing stunts and trying to do normal thngs like playing guitars or goin to the shops. Some people think it's for charity or fathers for justice and are a bit wary but others just take it for what it is: the attempt to inject some surrealism into normal life.
Actually it's a bit like the Smiths and their nice tunes with bitter and twisted lyrics. Barry the Badger is an effective way of creating a sugary pill. He is a moving billboard, interactive and better than any flash ad. We wanted to stream Barry and other artists live over the internet during our Artcast residency in Sunderland but funding support fell through. We produced videocasts but these were not enough. So we have explored another way of doing it with full production support.
We put Barry the Badger into a talent show called Upstaged run by Endemol and BBC3 describing him as 'a mad, musical, painting, stunt animal artist'. And to everyone's surprise he took it by storm. Acts needed to perform for 6 hrs inside a glass box and people voted online.
It is a rare event for such an offbeat act to do so well in a 'talent' show. Barry beat a down with it hip-hop act, a trendy cooking show and a heavy rock band. 95% of his lyrics and stunts were censored so the show was improvised from start to finish. That is 24 hrs inside a glass box in Bristol 'talking about nothing forever' (so the BBC are now getting all existentialist on our arses!)
The Arts council could not pay for it but BBC3 sure as hell could and did.
