?The world according to Silvio??that?s what comes to mind after hearing this piece. Sylvio is an offbeat artist, and in this 5-minute stream of consciousness, he shares his thoughts on the definition of art, one?s moral obligation to make things better, the church, American women, living frugally, and his loneliness. At times he is preachy, at others intolerant, and sometimes incoherent. His honesty and energy are engaging however, and I was surprised several times by what he revealed about himself. I don?t quite know what to make of Sylvio, but I did enjoy the roller coaster ride of his musings.
Silvio is a five-minute feature assembled by the producer from the ramblings of an Italian-American outsider artist. Because the piece is narrator-less, we?re left to make sense of his musings on life, art, religion and America. The producer does an excellent job of what was probably an extremely difficult task of making Silvio sound remotely coherent but, in the end, the listener is left wanting some context to understand this complex man and his art.
WDET producer Zak Rosen has been working on putting together a series of profiles of 'outsider artists' in his area, and this one introduces us to an eccentric Italian / American sculptor and poet named Silvio Barile. What Silvio lacks in coherence he makes up for in enthusiasm, and producer Rosen does a yeoman's job of cutting Silvio's inspired ramblings into a quasi-logical narrative. I think the interesting thing in this piece, which contains no narration, is that Sylvio's comments are presented to us in such a way that we learn a little sequence of revelations about him, clues that force us to continue to re-evaluate our impression of the guy: He's ecstatic, but he's lonely; he's an artist, but he's a radical conservative; he's loving, but he's had bad luck with women... After getting beyond the perfunctory label of 'kooky,' we learn a lot about the psychological dimensions of this character in just a few minutes. This is very original work.
Comments for Silvio
Produced by Zak Rosen
Other pieces by Zak Rosen
Rating Summary
3 comments
Taki Telonidis
Posted on November 25, 2006 at 05:33 AM | Permalink
Review of Silvio
?The world according to Silvio??that?s what comes to mind after hearing this piece. Sylvio is an offbeat artist, and in this 5-minute stream of consciousness, he shares his thoughts on the definition of art, one?s moral obligation to make things better, the church, American women, living frugally, and his loneliness. At times he is preachy, at others intolerant, and sometimes incoherent. His honesty and energy are engaging however, and I was surprised several times by what he revealed about himself. I don?t quite know what to make of Sylvio, but I did enjoy the roller coaster ride of his musings.
John Voci
Posted on November 20, 2006 at 11:47 AM | Permalink
Review of Silvio
Silvio is a five-minute feature assembled by the producer from the ramblings of an Italian-American outsider artist. Because the piece is narrator-less, we?re left to make sense of his musings on life, art, religion and America. The producer does an excellent job of what was probably an extremely difficult task of making Silvio sound remotely coherent but, in the end, the listener is left wanting some context to understand this complex man and his art.
Aaron Henkin
Posted on November 09, 2006 at 03:53 AM | Permalink
Review of Silvio
WDET producer Zak Rosen has been working on putting together a series of profiles of 'outsider artists' in his area, and this one introduces us to an eccentric Italian / American sculptor and poet named Silvio Barile. What Silvio lacks in coherence he makes up for in enthusiasm, and producer Rosen does a yeoman's job of cutting Silvio's inspired ramblings into a quasi-logical narrative. I think the interesting thing in this piece, which contains no narration, is that Sylvio's comments are presented to us in such a way that we learn a little sequence of revelations about him, clues that force us to continue to re-evaluate our impression of the guy: He's ecstatic, but he's lonely; he's an artist, but he's a radical conservative; he's loving, but he's had bad luck with women... After getting beyond the perfunctory label of 'kooky,' we learn a lot about the psychological dimensions of this character in just a few minutes. This is very original work.