| Igor Mischiyev | |
| Silver Surfer |
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| The story of the video-animation series-titled the Silver Surfer
consists of four episodes which unfold and are meant to be shown
simultaneously. The protagonist of the series is based on an American comic figure created by Marvel Comics, the company which also created the Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor and other well known comic figures. The Silver Surfer has the charm of a tragic hero: leaving behind the frontiers of time and space, the invulnerable alien reached the earth on his cosmic surfing board. There, because of his unimaginable powers, he encountered mistrust and rejection. The Silver Surfer of this series is not a copy of the Marvel figure. Like the original he is silver from head to foot, an alien and yet one of us. But in the series he is further developed into a new character. He appears in costume form as well in a form of computer animation. All episodes begin with the same opening credits and introductory sequence, presenting events which are intertwined through out all four episodes. Each episode has exactly the same length of 9:10 minutes. The language is English. As it does in most of the original Silver Surfer comics, the action takes place in New York City. Each story begins with the Silver Surfer coming out of the depths of outer space, appearing in the earth´s atmosphere and heading straigth to N.Y.C. The Silver Surfer repeats the same span of time four times in parallel. The supporting characters are the architecture with which the super hero interacts with the ideas of territories, history, science and power which the "character-architecture" represents and a herd of sheep. The episodes all end in white. The series simulates the environment of television by using several film and video formats: super-8, 16 mm, 35mm, hi-8, s-vhs, betacam sp and computer animations together with picture manipulations. The soundtrack of the series is original, made by Koka, Alec Empire and others. This work was shown on November 15th, 1996 simultaneously in different countries. It was broadcast on tv and public places and on the WorldWideWeb. A list of galleries, museums and media institutes where the work has also been exhibited as an installation appears on the opposite side of the postcards. For the Silver Surfer projection a certain architectual environement was built for the exhibitions in which the visitors could find their own views to follow the conversation between the Silver Surfer, the architecture and the sheep. A separate room with a stand like in pop/rock concerts included the merchandising items: posters, 25 images (overworked stills from the series come in an edition of seven each drawed individually), soundtrack cd, pins, vhs tapes and t-shirts. At the entrance area one could see on a seperate tv-monitor I60R holding an introduction at the Potsdamer-Square. |