Casey Curran

What can you take away from this talk to assist you in developing your project?

I think this was one of the most thought-provoking talks that we have had thus far. As we all piled into the room, there was an image on projected on the screen of a black man dressed in a revealing butler suit with a contraption on his head which was forcing his mouth open. So, naturally I was disturbed and that was the start of the questions I had piling up in my head. As Casey went through the images and spoke about the role he played in the creation of the objects used in the performances, it seemed to be hard for everyone in the room to only focus on the sculptural elements of the objects and not their ultimate meanings. The images of the performances were so suggestive and powerful that by the end of Casey's talk almost everyone had the same questions of "why, why, why?" It is difficult to stomach some of the content as it touches on the most controversial concepts of humanity: war, oppression, poverty, wealth, class structure, racism, sexism, rape and sodomy (to name a few). It seemed as if there was no issue that wasn't touched on, and it also didn't seem like it was always done tastefully, or with a purpose. And while Casey essentially deflected every question regarding the actual meaning of anything, I found relief in his likening the material to that of an Opera. Because when viewing an Opera, we don't often know what words are specifically said generally due to a language barrier, but the message is always clear, often bringing tears to the eyes of the viewers. It is the director's prerogative to send whatever message he wants to send, and in any way he wants to send it. He can't control whether someone will watch and understand everything he is trying to say, and I don't think he expects to. It sort of seems like a "take it or leave it" situation.

That all being said, for the garment/prosthesis project, we won't exactly have the opportunity to convey our meaning with words, so our piece has to reflect what we want to say without that. It has to be conveyed through the piece itself and how we perform with it. Also, Casey's attention to detail with his pieces was incredibly inspiring to me. His skill in his craft is evident and I found it incredibly impressive how visually cohesive everything was throughout all of the material he presented. There were so many different materials used, and not one of them seemed out of place. Not only will this presentation be something that inspires me for the final project, but I will refer back to it often as inspiration throughout my career.