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Henderson came here as one of the collective of digital sculptors invested in Beijing Tomorrow Gallery. He had an epiphany: “I have to make Chinese products in stone because there's a different technological language for people in China – objects have different meanings.” He plans to do Beijing TV, a stone recreation of a black and white analogue television manufactured in China in the late 50's. This one will be “airing” Chairman Mao's image, Andy Warhol style. “One of my favorite literary items is a children's series on Tom Swift and his wireless telephone, nuclear submarine and other ideas about the future of our world … What I want people to think about when they look at my stone technologies is where we came from technologically, where we are headed, what the good things are, the bad things, and the unintended consequences that its use and development have thrown up.”
“When Saddam Hussein was executed, the prison guards
used my invention to video the moment, which now can be
found by my children on the internet. A very unsavory
consequence”.
This unintended consequence of technology challenged him to think beyond his own ego and of his drive to be creative. The “side effects” of transforming technologies sometimes just present themselves. Henderson's roles on the boards of educational institutions revealed some fallout: the instantaneous environment communications technology creates, and the consequently short attention span of youth. Among these educational colleagues conversations still rage about how to communicate with people who can't maintain eye contact. This suggests technology and its impacts will be around while its discarded husks languish at garage sales.
Despite the flash-in-the-pan nature of his muse, or perhaps because of it, his irresistible sculptures are sensual, and speak to permanence. The carving of technology in stone is saying what Henderson wants to say about the erosion of tactility in our world. Henderson went to Stonehenge and notes that while some of his sculptures are 5000 tons, the largest trilathon at Stonehenge, that ancient Western technology, is 40,000 tons; it's been around for a long time and continues to be a magnet for speculation and mystery. By contrast, Henderson shrugs, “My 10 year old and my 14 year old have completely different experiences. The cultural language of objects is different between 10 and 14 years of age! There is no unifying force of objects around us because they are always changing”. Looking from the outside, today's youth are fragmented, even youth who are technically of the same generation.
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