What is my work about?
I write and perform stand up comedy. Then, I build computer generated 3D self-portraits using photogrammetry and 3D modeling. I animate these avatars to reenact my comedy sets and monologues. I 3D print these avatars so they function as packaging for the animation. I also use holographic imaging and robotics to develop this persona. Presenting on stage is willful self-objectification and I explore and reproduce this exercise through the videos and objects. The artwork, in turn, informs the live stand up and contributes to a morphing cycle of self-objectification. This process, over time, will result in an extensive, chronological series of self-portraits.
Artist Statement
I remember sitting back in my chair in high school starring at the ceiling when it hit me. “Oh hell no! Everything around me has nothing to do with me.” Everything I sit in, stare at, hide and eat under was built by someone much richer and older than I. My own face wasn’t even built by me. And I saw that this is true for everyone…Even YOU. My sweet little existential crisis helped me realize some humility, and then later, self-obsession.
I reproduce my face almost exclusively because it is an aesthetic that was chosen for me, but it’s the only aesthetic I feel I can fully adapt to, appropriate, and become an expert in. My face is the only aesthetic I feel an obligation to.
Through my laborious practice of self-obsession, I learned that having a face isn’t enough. The face must be fun to talk to, amazing to borrow money from, wonderful to spend the rest of your life with. The face must be attached to a great person. The face must have self-awareness to achieve improvement of its host body.
Stand up comedy requires rethinking my delivery, experiences, and self regularly. This is also true in developing my Internet identity. It is not unlike self-improvement in real life, which betters my experience with and impression on my friends and family. I make a mistake, I seek to learn why and how, and I try to do better next time. My stand up persona, my Internet persona, and my ‘real’ persona use the same method to improve. The mindful editing and reforming to hone how I want to be seen, received, and treated is constant in my life—so is the anxiety surrounding it. I want to show that process in my practice. The ‘correct’ way to feel about myself, manage myself, and present myself changes constantly as does everything. I discuss this permutation of reality on stage.
I recreate the cycle of rebuilding an identity in my life through technological selfportraits. The cameras, software and techniques I use decide how I end up looking through their own rule based systems. The writing, however, is always in my control. Processing my image through technological systems has it’s own boundaries and limitlessness. I allow this randomness of the final products. They archive my comedy, my image, my technical skill at the time, and the technology available to me at the time. They become a legacy of my improvements, mistakes and improvements again, hopefully. I will continue this body of work using self-obsessive-improvement and developing technology. The Internet told me to do it.
CV
EDUCATION
2009 BFA. Film/Video/New Media. School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS / SCREENINGS / CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2014
Shapes & Skins: Unrealized Avatars and Alter Egos. E-Flux. New York, New York.
Counter-Textual. Rapid Pulse. Nightingale Theater. Chicago, Illinois.
Monkey Town 4. Cultural Partner MCA Denver, Colorado.
2013
VIA Festival. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Them/Her. V Group. New York, New York & London, England.
Aboveground Animation. MOCA. Los Angeles, California.
Decenter. Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show. Digital Exhibition.
2012
Cyber. MOCA. Los Angeles, California.
Performativity. MOCATV.
Aboveground Animation. New Museum. New York, New York.
First Look: New Art Online Presents 3-D-Form. New Museum. Digital Exhibition.
Aboveground Animation. Ramiken Crucible. New York, New York.
AbovegroundAnimation.com, Digital Exhibition.
2011
Snack the Planet. Museum of Art and Design. New York, New York.
Aboveground Animation: ESP TV. Cable Access. New York, New York; Ramiken Crucible. New York, New York.; Show Cave. Los Angeles, California. Saturday Sessions Presents: Mirror Mirror. MOMAPS1. New York, New York.
2010
Aboveground Animation Tour: Ramiken Crucible. New York, New York; Show Cave. Los Angeles, California; Couch Couch Theater. Atlanta, Georgia: and Louis VESP. Brooklyn, New York.
2009
Animate This. Gene Siskel Theater. Chicago, Illinois.
2008
Aboveground Animation. Co-Prosperity Sphere. Chicago, Illinois.
Select Media Festival. Co-Prosperity Sphere. Chicago, Illinois.
2007
Art Bash. Betty Rymer Gallery. Chicago, Illinois.
STAND UP COMEDY / PERFORMANCES / APPEARANCES / WEBSERIES
2014
Artbound. MOCA TV on KCET. Los Angeles, California.
Touching the Art. Webseries. Ovation TV.
Showgasm. Ars Nova. New York, New York.
Mixed Media Presents: LIVE! at White Columns. New York, New York.
Don’t Unplug Me. Oberlin College. Oberlin, Ohio.
Monkey Town 4. Cultural Partner MCA Denver, Colorado.
2013
Comma, Boat. Appeared in Ryan Trecartin’s Film. Venice Biennale. Venice, Italy.
What the Fashion?! Webseries. VFiles.
Family Comedy. Family Bookstore. Los Angeles, California.
Night Comedy. Night Gallery. Los Angeles, California.
Ramiken Crucible. New York, New York.
2012
Cyber. MOCA. Los Angeles, California.
12-14 VFiles Status Update. Webseries.
VFILES. STAND UP COMEDY. 1:1. New York, New York.
WRITING
2014 The Pain Withinternet. Gawker. New York, New York.
How to Celebrate Independence Day. Dazed & Confused Magazine. London, England.
How to be Attractive. Dazed & Confused Magazine. London, England.
Fear of Getting Framed Tutorial, 2013, video, color, 1:21.
Fear of Getting Framed, 2013, video, color, 11:23.
It’s So Important to Seem Wonderful Part I, 2012, video, color, 5:49, commissioned by MOCA Los Angeles.
Casey App Demo, 2014, video, color, 6:25. Demonstration of Casey Application developed to allow anyone to apply Casey’s face to their own.
Webcam Stand Up, 2014, video, color, 25:39. Documentation of live webcam comedy demonstrating the Casey Application.
Casey Is Your Cult, 2014, video, color, 3:06. Commercial for Casey’s fictional cult, T-shirt line, and caseyisyourcult.com which is the online store.
Subtle Bot (unfinished), 2014, video, color, 3:20. Documentation of Subtle Bot, unfinished, 3D printed foam, will be resin coated, will be hand painted, 10in x 14x x 9in.