Armand Ruhlman
Armand’s personal website
Video channel on vimeo
Video channel on youtube
My current video project is a series of poetic documentaries set in New York. My intention is to offer a personal exploration, discovery and interpretation of both the content and the media resources being utilized to create and convey a particular piece.
Many of my video pieces portray a stream-of-consciousness consisting of various images of people, places, things, and sounds to describe a tension between inner landscape and the actual cityscape. My video pieces have often been presented as part of a multi-media experience consisting of live performances, along with elements of dance and music. I have also experimented with the graphical nature of the video singling out and making use of its abstract elements as if I were manipulating a still picture or photograph.
My background includes play and fiction writing, film-making, theatre and performance. The key moments of my experience include attending seminars with French film-making legends, Robert Bresson and Eric Rohmer in Paris; writing and directing an off-Broadway show at La Mama’s Galleria Space in downtown Manhattan; and making a short documentary on New Orleans, “N’awlins”, that was shown over PBS in Los Angeles and New Orleans.
Right now I am collaborating with fellow artist, Dariya Yalova, on a series of video-poems, set in New York and reflecting the surrounding physical landscapes, emotional dynamics, and political currents swirling about the city’s inhabitants.
Dariya Yalova
Dariya’s channel on youtube
Sound design on vimeo
Blog
I studied art at Brooklyn College and majored in media at Hunter College, CUNY. My art explores the intersection of video and poetry. I use video as a means of self-expression and a tool for learning and discovering the world around me. I craft visual images with the help of intricate editing technique and sound design, muted color palette and contrast.
As a poet and artist, I have been always determined to explore new territory and experiment with the media. Video and sound design have become my main venues of learning and seeing, my telescope and microscope. Looking through camera lenses enables me to notice something special and exciting about my everyday reality. At Hunter College, I was a student of such inspiring professors and filmmakers as Kelly Anderson, Tami Gold, and Michael Gitlin, who greatly influenced me. I started as a documentary filmmaker and made a short about Doctors Without Borders, The Road Taken (2006), but later switched to experimental video (The Pool of Fire (2008), Marina(2009)). While my documentaries project fascination with noble goals and great personalities – like the Doctors who work overseas in areas of war and natural disaster to help communities in need, – my experimental videos are more introverted and meditative and explore the relations between the individual and the outside world. I am inspired by marginal spaces like roofs, abandoned areas, basements, bridges, the freedom of Floyd Bennett Field, Marine Park, and Coney Island.
Currently, I have teamed up with an independent artist and New Yorker Armand A. Ruhlman. This joint project, Poetry of Urban Existence, is a series of video poems set in New York. It expresses my personal ‘New-York state of mind’, which encompasses the amazement at the beauty of nature, the energy of people and their environment, the emotional struggle of immigrants, and my inner conflicts and contemplations.
