Douglas Henderson ::: Silver Surfer

In the earliest strips, the cartoon character "Silver Surfer" is the agent and victim of a Faustian bargain with a vast and evil planet-eater. He spends much of his time perched on lonely asteroids, struggling to reconcile his heinous duty with his suppressed conscience. Second in a series of tributes to cartoon superheroes, my Silver Surfer speaks particularly to the inner voice of this character -- it is a gleaming loudspeaker, gilt in sterling silver, with a mirrored mylar cover. A linear laser is bounced off this surface, and its moving patterns undulate to the power of subsonic audio waves, revealing the tormented soul of the surfer. Above and to the right a black sphere hangs (housing a speaker), an asteroid for the surfer to orbit, with the sounds of his lonely existence traveling to and fro. DBH.





			Silver Surfer courtesy: Finstral Collection
			2010. Sterling silver, aluminum, speakers, PVC, 2 channel audio. 45cm x 45cm x 45cm and 11cm x 11cm x 20cm. 8 min.
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	In the earliest strips, the cartoon character "Silver Surfer" is the agent and victim of a Faustian bargain with a vast and evil planet-eater. He spends much of his time perched on lonely asteroids, struggling to reconcile his heinous duty with his suppressed conscience. Second in a series of tributes to cartoon superheroes, my Silver Surfer speaks particularly to the inner voice of this character -- it is a gleaming loudspeaker, gilt in sterling silver, with a mirrored mylar cover. A linear laser is bounced off this surface, and its moving patterns undulate to the power of subsonic audio waves, revealing the tormented soul of the surfer. Above and to the right a black sphere hangs (housing a speaker), an asteroid for the surfer to orbit, with the sounds of his lonely existence traveling to and fro. DBH. © 2010 Douglas Henderson
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