"I AM PUBLIC AVATAR"

Art As part of FACT Liverpool’s Robot and Avatars exhibition (which I'm hoping to visit shortly), artist Martin Bricelj Baraga created a Public Avatar project in which a human's free will is replaced by that of gallery visitors. One of the participants, C James Fagan has written for Double Negative about the experience. He's a brave man:

"My time as a Public Avatar is drawing near; as I walk through the crowds of people gathered in Liverpool to shop, celebrating St Patrick’s Day, I realise this is my audience. I wonder how they’ll react; I fear a negative/aggressive reaction. Time will tell.

I find myself at FACT, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the team; part of me hopes they won’t turn up. They do of course, and soon they are readying me for my Public Avatar experience. This is it. I am outside FACT, and one of my early instructions is to find a bar to shout out ‘I AM PUBLIC AVATAR’, and sing to a girl along similar lines. The reaction isn’t great; the woman flees fearing I am a suicide bomber.

I quickly leave."

It's probably a good thing I work at the weekend and missed this.  Power corrupts etc.