A photographic imagination

Video Channel Interview

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:40:01 +0000

Video Project Environments
Diorio, Ron

Ron Diorio
New York based media artist

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biography

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Interview: 10 questions

1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background

I was born and raised in NYC (Manhattan). I am self taught film maker and photographer.

2. When, how and why started you filming?

In 2003 I started a “digital storytelling project” that quickly turned in a photo-based contemporary art project culminating in 2008 with two solo exhibitions at the Peter Hay Halpert Gallery in New York. In the summer of 2008 prior to the second exhibition I decided I to go back to finish what I started in 2003. I was able to produce 18 short (1-5 minute) pieces during late summer 2008 through spring 2009.

3. What kind of subjects have your films?

What I have been able to explore so far war, money, sex, art and the general unsettled worlds that my mind wonders to.

4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?

I see these films as experimental documentary and they develop in an organic way.

5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.

A few low-fi video/slide show editing programs plus Audacity for audio capture and edit. An assortment of capture devices PDAs, mobile phones, point and shoot still and video cameras.

6. What are the chances of new media for the genre film/video in general
and you personally?

I think mew media is the most interesting part: the ability to produce and distribute at will and being able to develop a method of expressing oneself in a very public way. Engaging even a small audience over time with a body of work allows for intimacy and understanding that traditional outlets - i.e. festivals, screenings, TV - can’t scale to.

7. How do you finance your films?

Self-financed through the sale of my art work

8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?
if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?

I work individually however that is more from convenience at this point in time.

9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?

Albums like Nebraska (Springsteen) , Street Hassle (Lou Reed), John Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy, Bugs Bunny, Fellini, Pasolini, Scorsese and Chris Marker

10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?

I am currently preparing for a new project which I plan to begin in September called “One thousand minutes” which will act as a notebook/sketchbook, assembling and re-assembling what I hope to be hundreds of short pieces about the battle to deconstruct America under Obama.

Can works of yours viewed online besides on VideoChannel? Where?

A winter wind (2009)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:22:06 +0000

Some bad news

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:22:18 +0000

Some bad news (2008)

Penny candy

Thu, 07 May 2009 10:10:30 +0000

Night light

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:15:19 +0000

Embarkation

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:56:02 +0000

Embarkation
Text and images: Ron Diorio
Copyright 2009 Ron Diorio
Courtesy of Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art
phhfineart@phhfineart.com

Embarkation

In the great park
they passed the letter of introduction
to the little white girl.

He looked like St Francis of Assisi
however
the rape of Europa was still on his mind.

The two school boys were overcome
with hope,
love
and beauty.

Mares and foals,
a christening feast with the lady Marilyn
at the Lighthouse,
full bottles of reds on a moonlit beach.

And like her
Christina's world was
forged
gothic
and American.

A flag over the town hall,
a landscape with trees
and lovers
battling a storm off the harbour's mouth.

Dagmar
he left the library in Park street spilling into the basin
in which he washed his hands
while staring at Daisy
the great American nude
in the garden.

Then
the little pastry chef,
Saint Francis
and the bird descended

Their game was stalled.

What I did during the war Parts 1-4

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:53:40 +0000

The video work that summarizes the years 2001-2008 as they came: fear, money, fidelity and art. Each piece is 90 seconds or less, a limit of the video publishing platform on Flickr. Copyright 2008 Ron Diorio

What I did during the war: Part 1 Fear
(01:06)

Images and Montage: Ron Diorio
Music: Souvenir de Porto Rico op 31 (Louis Morzan Gottschalk ) from Archvie.org
Words: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1940) from Archvie.org

What I did during the war; Part 2 Money
(01:30)

Images and Montage: Ron Diorio

Librivox recording
"The error of imaginary causes"
The Twilight of the Idols
by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Read by D.E. Wittkower
www.archive.org/details/the_twilight_of_the_idols_librivox

Other audio sample
The Psalters, Home for Refugees
www.archive.org/

What I did during the war, Part 3 The Surge (Sex)
(01:20)

What I did during the war, Part 4 Ragazzi di vita (Art)
(01:27)

Courtesy of Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art
www.phhfineart.com/

Poegles project

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:22:09 +0000

Poegles project

Ongoing multimedia exploration images and spoken word performances of constructed texts based on Poegles. Poegles are poems made from Google search results.

A season of wants (2008)

Search term "I want"

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Penny candy (2008)

Search term "hometown"

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Some bad news (2008)

Search term "secrets"

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Night light (2008)

Search term "night light"

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About Ron Diorio
Ron Diorio is a web based artist working in multiple media including photography, video, spoken word and interactive applications. Ron has had three solo shows of his photographs, which have also been included in many group shows. Ron's work has been exhibited internationally and is currently represented by Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art in New York City (phhfineart.com) . He produced Zine TV (93-95), a DIY television series on the diversity and creativity of the self publishing community - the "zine scene" of the mid 90s. Ron's current video work focuses on virtuality and the "imitation of life" in the early 21st century. The work is presented through short personal essays weaving, spoken word, video, photography, Poegles, and found public forum
postings and other texts. Ron is VP for Product and Community Development for The Economist/Economist.com. He is a life long New Yorker and lives with his wife and two children in northern Manhattan.

Statement of work
I am a citizen artist and through the social web the audience and this body of work have found each other. This current video work extends my recent photographic explorations challenging the veracity of documentary practices through the ambiguity of place and persona, manipulation of media, low-fi production and social methods of distribution. The video links included in this submission include my most recent work produced and premiered online for the active online community audience involved with my work since 2004.

About the Poegles Project
The Poegles Project was started in 2008 as an exploration of the emerging dominance of meta data indexing, the organization of information and the machine prioritizion of those results. It attempts to re-describe the origination of narration and the assembly of visual and audio cues drawing on the notions of surrealist poetry, Burroughs cut-ups and the photo-cinema of Chris Marker.

A season of wants

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:07:52 +0000

A season of wants

I want to be a super hero
I want to return
I want to date
I want to be heard
I want to focus
I want to lock up
I want 18 million dollars
I want my title back
I want a win
I want to watch
I want to establish an identity
I want to ban booze
I want to stay safe
I want you
I want a child
I want a friend on facebook
I want season tickets
I want be a guy that makes stupid comments
I want date a rock star

I want a lot

I want stay
I want see how it ends
I want be a part
I want discuss your future
I want to change it
I want a new deal
I want to rock
I want it the best way
I want to be a spoiler
I want to stop
I want to outlaw
I want to say too much
I want to keep all my cards on the table
I want to to be patient
I want to you to believe
I want to eat at a table with my own silver
I want a wife
I want to be back

Nervous thinking

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:43:32 +0000

Back in June 2003, I started what I thought was going to be a small, simple digital storytelling project. That project branched off into a photographic adventure that has left me changed for the better. However as with all circles you eventually come back. In this case I was renewed by the release of Flickr video which allowed me to create with a fixed 90 second framework and publish to a community of people who were familiar with my body of work, some for almost all five years.

Slowly I have become focused on ths "new" thing. It has re-invigorated my photo-image making but had subtly allowed me to re-define myself as a "recording artist": images, video and spoken word. This is the longest of the pieces I have produced.

The text was adapted from a forum posting on Craig's List, I recorded and mixed the voice over and the sound track. I wanted to use as few images as possible within the video with movement and frame transitions adding duration and ambiguity. I am still in the craft stage. No technique comes without repetition and so this is still early days.

Nightlight

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:05:46 +0000

Wall Street Sends Tremors to 57th Street Art Dealers

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:40:23 +0000

from Bloomberg

Letting Phones Ring

At the Laurence Miller gallery, which specializes in modern and contemporary photography, director Laurence Miller said clients' reactions to Wall Street's woes have varied.

``We are dealing with a few collectors who are in the highest level of economics and wealth in the country and it doesn't affect them,'' Miller said. He noted, though, that ``clients who are money managers are not answering their phones.''

A survivor of three recessions, Miller said, ``Interestingly, each time, as people scale back, they scale back into photography.'' "

A small adaptation

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:02:38 +0000

Came home last night, found a copy Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" in our laundry room. Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" is one of my favorite books however I never quite warmed up to and "American Tragedy". I flipped open to American Tragedy and parsed some of the text, recorded a quick soundtrack voice over and assembled a small adaptation.

An American Tragedy 490

some time in the future
on the way down

sure as anything
she must do

get in one
get in another
just ahead

just behind

the state he had been in
pleading
silence
delay

if he were she
some little hotel
a trip maybe
nearest quiet corner

so secret

but she must not ask him now

Adpated from An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (p.490/Signet Classic Edition)

This Weekend: Art Fair 21 in Cologne

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:24:11 +0000

First fair after the meltdown, if you attend tell us what the buyer's mood is ....

New York art market shows evidence of weakness

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:01:34 +0000

Art newspaper

Sign of things to come? New York art market shows evidence of weakness

Global stocks crash; buying drops at auctions in US and fairs in Korea and France

By Melanie Gerlis | From News | Posted: 2.10.08

LONDON. The Asia Week auctions in New York were the first to show a dramatic fall in revenue and buy-in rates since last year, suggesting that the art market can no longer withstand the pressure of the surrounding economic turmoil. In the same week, although nearly all lots sold at Damien Hirst’s solo auction at Sotheby’s in London (some of it to his art dealers), the Korea International Art Fair was hit by the financial backdrop and buying also dropped at the art and antiquities biennial in Paris.

In the space of a few days in September, the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection; the US’s biggest insurance group, AIG, was rescued from collapse by the Federal Reserve; and financial corporations including Merrill Lynch and Halifax Bank of Scotland (the UK’s largest lender) were pushed into acquisitions by their competitors. Market commentators were comparing the situation to the economic gloom of the Great Depression, which began in the US in 1929, and warning that it could be at least five years before stability returns.

There are still those who profess to believe that there are markets that can continue to operate in isolation; auctioneers and dealers have been saying for months that buyers from growing economies such as China and Russia can make up for the likely retirement of western buyers. But news of Lehman Brothers’ collapse didn’t only see the Dow Jones fall 500-points: Asian stocks nosedived (the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 4.5% on 16 September), and on 17 September trading on Russia’s main stock exchange—one of the best performing indexes in recent years—was suspended following sharp falls in share prices prompted by the news from Wall Street.

“There will be a tightening of belts,” says Philip Hoffman, founder of the UK’s Fine Art Fund. Andreas Gegner, director at Sprüth Magers in London, says: “September’s news was more dramatic than we’ve seen before and sent more alarming signals. The Damien Hirst sale went fine, but you could argue this sale was the exception and therefore can’t be relied upon. I would imagine that people who have started buying art recently, many of whom work in financial companies, may pull out now.”

Historically there has been a loose correlation between the wider economy and the art market, which has taken around 18 months to react to financial downturns. It is now over a year since the sub-prime mortgage fiasco began to unwind.

October’s Frieze Art Fair and the following contemporary sales in London and New York will once again hope to defy economic gravity.