Ron Rocco (born 1953, Texas, U.S) is an American artist who has worked in New York City, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Berlin, Germany and China.

Rocco's earliest work in sculpture grew out of an interest in the tension generated forms, made famous by the American artist, Kenneth Snelson and German architect, Frei Otto.

Rocco's work was based on arced segments of aluminum or wood, in constructions which displayed a balance between tensile and compression forces, subject to the effects of gravity.

As a result of this new influence later work in tension sculptures began to encompass performance activities, employed string figures taken from Inuit and Oceanic sources; forms, which in their traditional context possessed a social facet, in the communication of communal beliefs and ritual.

's Visual Language Workshop and Owego, New York's Experimental Television Center, Rocco authored computer software to produce an early image processing system for video.

His works "Plotzensee" (2000) and "Berlin Diaries" (2000) can be found in the Experimental Television Center Repository, in the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art.

This performance was funded by a 1984 Inter-Arts Grant from The National Endowment for the Arts and the Sony Corporation, and may well have been the first live, on-stage application of computer generated imagery for dance.

One such installation, provided real-time, graphic representation of sound, employing a laser scanner and a digitally processed, video feedback loop to create images that were abstract and strikingly calligraphic.

The New York State Council on the Arts funded event in collaboration Hykes and his Harmonic Choir used the two-thousand-year-old tradition of Mongolian overtone chanting, practiced by these musicians, to control the visual phenomena created by the system of scanning lasers, video displays and computer processor.

Eight broadcast events were produced (via Pseudo Media in New York), bringing together news clips, interviews and discussion groups from Chiapas, Mexico, and the U.S. along with Mayan theater, for the List Gallery exhibition and the Internet.

As a site specific and web based project located at the St. George terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, this project joined maritime subjects, navigation technology and historical documents to explored the relationship of Snug Harbor Cultural Center's past, as a home for retired seamen, to the present refuge for aged sailors in Sea Level, North Carolina.

Works like A Poet Dies on 12th Street and Eviction Plan stem from his experiences as a tenant organizer at this time, and document cases of murder and arson as side-products of these economic forces.

Focusing on the balance between the natural and man-made world, Rocco's 1989, Waterline Project in Amsterdam, Netherlands was created for the Dutch foundation ArtGarden.

Other projects during Rocco's later European residencies at Künstlerhaus Bethanien and Die KünstFabrik in Berlin, Germany as well as Kunst & Complex in Rotterdam, Netherlands, resulted in exhibitions in 1991–93.

This body of work, which delineated personal issues such as age, masculinity, and health, took on more global meaning, in the context of addressing questions of human frailty, genocide and social values during times of transition.

In this body of work, Rocco often refers to elements of control and order, and environments bordering on social cataclysm, through images of sinking ships, deserted streets and disoriented swimmers.

Perhaps because of long periods in residence outside the United States, or due to his earlier experiences in opposition to the Vietnam War, Rocco began to articulate a new view of American culture.

from his 2010 New York exhibition at Dam Stuhltrager Gallery, curated by Lynn del Sol is an artwork addressing issues of environmental degradation and the reality of Global Warming.

To Rocco, it was clear Beuys chose the classroom as his canvas in orchestrating an open forum for intellectual exchange and frequently applied "philosophical concepts to his pedagogical practice."