NOAH DIRUZZA

Throughout history, art has evolved with technology. We now find ourselves in an era of computers and cameras. How is art evolving with it? 

Noah DiRuzza is a painter and sculptor from Marlboro, Ohio who explores the intersection of humans, technology, and the natural world via sculpture and painting. We spoke with him about his artistic vision and current projects - namely an organic cyborg sculpture with a vintage camera for a head.

Noah: It's kinda like he’s looking at his own perception. 

Noah is pointing to the screen which his  

Miya: How did you get the camera to work? 

N: I took out the reel and all the other gadgets that were in there and replaced them with a bank camera that takes pictures of checks. I had to drill and grind out old parts in the side compartment to make room for the bank camera. 

M: His thigh looks so realistic 

Asa: Did you do anatomical studies to do that? 

N: Well I have a medical background. I took a bunch of anatomy classes when I was studying to be a firefighter. I was also a personal trainer. 

A: There also seems to be a theme of nature reclamation in your work. 

N: Yeah a little bit. I’m trying to create this isomorphic relationship between humans, nature, and technology. So not viewing technology as for humans, not viewing nature as below humans, but combining them all and kind of representing them more democratically. Instead of speaking for them, I try to give them a voice. 

M: So this nature man sculpture is really nature, man and technology in one. 

N: The figure is human but he’s made up of sticks and stones with a camera head. The camera gives it a voice like he’s watching you so you have to behave in front of this nature man sculpture how you would a human. 

M: I like how you portrayed his posture. It's so bad it's funny to me. 

N: That's how I sit. (laughs) 

M: That's how I sit too! 

A: Do you consciously diversify your portfolio between sculptures and painting? 

N: Well I initially went to graduate school as a painter but quickly moved into sculpture. It’s funny because when I was talking to one of my undergrad professors at Kent State Stark about graduate school, he really encouraged me to do sculpting, but I was like no I wanna work with color and so on. 

A: You seem to have combined them with your current works. 

N: One of my undergrad paintings used plastic bags, so it was like sculpture I guess. 

A: Do you prefer painting, sculpture, or a mixture?

N: A mixture. Lately with the installation ideas it has been sculpture. I got out of painting because I wanted to affect people in a more political sense. With painting, my work felt more ornamental. Like a piece would go in someone’s house to hang on their wall or whatever. I don’t really care about that or selling my work as much as affecting people. 

A: Are you inspired by other artists that mix technology, sculpture and nature? 

N: Pierre Huyghe was a huge inspiration. He has all these sculptures that utilize tech, then he combines them all in this hockey rink for a project called After a Life Ahead. He excavated the ground so there’s part of the old floor and then dirt that goes down almost like a canyon. It’s hard to explain because there’s so much involved. There’s an aquarium with a poisonous sea snail. The people that look at it interact with the camera somehow so it fogs the glass and changes the trajectory of the snail. Everything in it is connected just like the natural world. That’s what I’m trying to achieve is that connectedness of the pieces in the exhibition. 

A: Ahh so it’ll be interactive in a sense. What do you think your role as an artist is in facilitating deep thinking? Do you take that pretty seriously or is that something your audience has to come upon themselves?

N: Well, when I first started installations, my thinking was that I really wanted to impact people and say something. But now, I’m more along the lines of I want to open up this area for discussion on thought-provoking topics and let the audience put the pieces together themselves. I don’t really care if you get what I’m trying to portray as long as I provide a platform for those moments to happen. 

A: You’re creating space and community in a sense. It seems like space is a major theme in your work between the map painting and installations. A big part of AIR is bringing the museum experience and shared space to people in order to make them more accessible. Growing up in rural Northeast Ohio, did you go to art museums? 

N: Not really. Not until undergrad did I start going to the Akron Art Museum which is pretty small. I also visited some galleries in downtown Akron, but the one I liked the most closed down shortly after I started going and went exclusively online. 

A: Yeah and closer to you, Canton, has an even smaller museum. 

N: Yeah. They just started the First Friday gallery hop too, but that wasn’t there when I was growing up. 

A: They’re doing some positive things in Canton downtown, but it is still so focused on the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

N: It’s like all they got, so they just really double-down on it. 

A: No kidding. They just took out like 75 homes through eminent domain to expand it. In the middle of a national housing crisis nonetheless. 

N: I could also see myself opening up a gallery space there - like half studio, half gallery. One of the artists I follow in Brooklyn, she was from Canton originally, got a grant for this studio space, so she rents out half of it to pay for living and uses the other half to create these giant sculptures. She even has a crew to help her out and everything. 

M: What’s her name?

N: Diana Al-Hadid. Her brother was my sister’s choir teacher. After my choir teacher retired, he was the new hire. My sister actually introduced me to Diana. When she first said her choir teacher’s sister was a famous artist, my response was a dismissive “get outta here”, but when I looked her up I was like “oh my God”. Then, this is crazy, we ended up remodeling her mom’s basement because my dad owns a construction business. While we were working, I got to see all of her undergrad work.

A: Incredible! So you were able to see her evolution as an artist from a unique perspective. How have you seen your art evolve over the years?

N: Well it’s gotten a lot more brainy I’d like to think. Before, when I made art, I wouldn’t really think about it. I’d just do it and sell it. But now, I really take time to think about what it means and what people are going to think about when they look at it. 

A: I can definitely see that as well as your evolution of medium from painting to sculpture. What, in your opinion, makes great art?

N: Oof that’s a tough question. It’s like music where there are so many different genres. Some songs within a genre are good and others are just bad. I like innovators because it’s hard to be original. 

A: When did you start making art?

N: I started as a kid. I was a lot more figurative though. I did portraits of my friends and stuff. 

A: I can see how you bring that figurative background to your work today.

N: Yeah this is the first figure I’ve done in years. 

M: How did you start this (the nature man sculpture)? Is it wire? 

N: It started as a chicken wire torso, then I put this foam on it to give it some body. The only thing I needed to get right was his hunch, so I had to really pay attention to that. Then I started finding sticks like that one which looks just like a thigh. 

A: How’d you get it to stick? 

N: Most of it is gorilla glue sticks, and some of it took this product called liquid nails. 

M: There’s a ton of rocks on there! He’s like a combination of mechanic and organic. 

N: Morganic! Most of the stuff I found on hikes. He’s also got some secret compartments. 

A: You’ve spoken about how nature and technology are one and expressed it through your art, so do you see art progressing with technology?

N: Oh yeah it’s already happening. Art has advanced so much even with regard to our access to pigments. Before, we just had earthy tones, and now we have radioactive looking colors like those in some of my paintings that are toxic looking. 

There were a few inspirations for the nature theory:  one of them being David Attenborough’s documentary A Life on Earth. That whole thing was about how technology should be used in tandem with nature. Then there’s another one: a Miyazaki film called Castle in the Sky. It’s kinda like an anime but not. It’s a cool film about this ancient technology that is superior to the technology of Earth, but it is floating in the air in this cloud where no one can get to it. Then, they finally discover it, but there’s these robots protecting it in this bird’s nest looking thing (laughs). I definitely want to make something like it.

A: Your work seems very oriented towards the future. Do you think technology can kind of be a double-edged sword in that you are exposed to more art and ideas for inspiration, but it is also harder to be original?

N: It can feel like everything has already been done, but there are always more possibilities. It is kind of a double-edged sword because people are selling stuff online for tons of crypto-currency when it’s just a little digital drawing on the app Paint. 

A: Yeah, with the evolution of technology, it seems that art is becoming increasingly commodified, but it does also open up a pathway for people like you and others to fight that trend. 

N: More people have access to it. Before the Internet and even magazines, the only people who had access to art were those that were from the rich and educated class. Now, literally everyone can see Van Gogh’s Starry Night on their phone. Without even going to a museum, they can study it. It would be interesting to see what kind of art I would have made if I lived in the 1500s instead of now. It probably would have been a painting or a mural for some rich person. 

A:  Are you interested in making public art?

N: Yeah I was actually thinking of putting the nature man sculpture out in public. I just have to seal it so I can use the DVR video recording input. 

M: At night, he would scare me! (laughs) I love the plants on him and your other work.

N: All the moss is real. It can be difficult to keep alive though, so sometimes it gets a little yellow. 

A: Did you learn anything about yourself during the quarantine?

N: During that summer, I got creative in coming up with some models for installation ideas like this one where there would be a big tree in a room with a Bible opened up to the verse about God giving dominion over the Earth to man. 

All the other religions talk about man being one with nature while the Bible specifies man as having dominion. The reaction it seems was to use the land without a care. So the idea is that in the exhibit, you read that chapter and are presented with the opportunity to chop the tree down. It’s like a social experiment. 

M: Can you water the tree?

N: You can do whatever you want.

A: That’s interesting - giving agency to the audience.

N: Yeah I just don’t know if I want to confront religion like that. 

M: I like it! I think it’s spot on. 

N: I also came up with the idea of having two trees: one that you could manually chop and another one that would be chopped down at the push of a button. The purpose is to explore how automation affects human actions. Like how people say things on Twitter they wouldn’t say in real life. 

M: That’s a great idea!

N: Another idea I had was that you walk into a room with a huge pile of dirt and someone sitting at a desk. The person at the desk hands you a jar of dirt as well as a deed to the dirt. Eventually the dirt will disappear and there will just be a stack of papers left. 

A: I like that examination of the commodification of our finite natural resources. 

N: Yeah the whole idea of owning property is just horrible. To me, if you take care of the land, then you deserve to live there. A lot of inspiration for that came from Mark Dion’s art exploring human’s impact on ecological systems. 

A: Those are all terrific ideas, and I look forward to seeing them! Well I think that’s a good note to end on. Thank you so much for your time! 

N: Thank you!