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| Salad Fingers by David Firth |
David Firth is a film maker, animator and musician who was born in Doncaster, UK in 1983. He started making animations after he was given a camcorder when he was 13. You might have heard of his Flash animation Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers is one of my favourite Flash animations. This cartoon became widely noticed when it was posted on the front page of a Flash animations site called Newgrounds. David Firth created Salad Fingers in 2004 and in 2005 it ranked in “top ten” for the pop culture phenomena for that year.
David is a surrealist and his creations are mostly based on dreams and mental illness. He prefers to create when he is tired as he says that tiredness helps to bring on random thoughts.
There are a number of websites that try to dissect the meaning of each and every episode of Salad Fingers. Most of the websites state the obvious. They talk about how Salad Fingers is green and has long salad-like fingers which he uses to fondle various objects because he likes there textures and how he derives pleasure from pain. They also say that he is mentally ill and talks to and names inanimate objects. One website goes so far as to say that Salad Fingers was the victim of the “Great War” and lives in a post-nuclear world where the trees are dead and there are few survivors.
Salad Fingers is what Firth is most famous for, but he also creates music as a member of several bands. Two of the bands are The Grape Digging Sharon Fruits and Locust Toybox. He describes his music from Locust Toybox as “electronic music that's melodic, fun and sometimes quite ambient.” He has made four albums with this band and they can be downloaded for free from the band’s website http://www.locusttoybox.co.uk/.
Firth also makes stop motion animations, but I much prefer his Flash works. Funnily enough, although most of his works are created in Flash, David has said that he doesn’t really like Flash because he doesn’t like the “Flash look”. He prefers the look of Macromedia Director. He says he uses Flash because it’s quick and has a small download size. Another Flash animation of his that I like is Spoilsbury Toast Boy. Have a look at an episode of it at: http://www.fat-pie.com/spoilsminus2.htm.
I like the visual style and mood of Firth’s animations. I love the different dream-like worlds that he creates. Most videos and animations have a strong basis in reality, where as Firth is not ashamed to completely dive into the subconscious realities that, like in dreams - accept the abnormal as if it were the norm. In that way his works may be compared to those of other surrealist artists such a Salvidor Dali. I like Firth’s animations because they deal with subjects you don’t normally see people touch on. I also like the way he uses the sound for his animations. He draws inspiration from the feeling of a particular song and tries to create an animation to accompany it – sort of like a music video. This elevates the sound to a central feature of the animation rather than just background noise. He creates some of the music himself and also uses music from bands such as Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin. I think his animations are very creative and funny. I find surrealist works that deal with the subconscious and feelings to be an inspiration to me.
David is a surrealist and his creations are mostly based on dreams and mental illness. He prefers to create when he is tired as he says that tiredness helps to bring on random thoughts.
There are a number of websites that try to dissect the meaning of each and every episode of Salad Fingers. Most of the websites state the obvious. They talk about how Salad Fingers is green and has long salad-like fingers which he uses to fondle various objects because he likes there textures and how he derives pleasure from pain. They also say that he is mentally ill and talks to and names inanimate objects. One website goes so far as to say that Salad Fingers was the victim of the “Great War” and lives in a post-nuclear world where the trees are dead and there are few survivors.
Salad Fingers is what Firth is most famous for, but he also creates music as a member of several bands. Two of the bands are The Grape Digging Sharon Fruits and Locust Toybox. He describes his music from Locust Toybox as “electronic music that's melodic, fun and sometimes quite ambient.” He has made four albums with this band and they can be downloaded for free from the band’s website http://www.locusttoybox.co.uk/.
Firth also makes stop motion animations, but I much prefer his Flash works. Funnily enough, although most of his works are created in Flash, David has said that he doesn’t really like Flash because he doesn’t like the “Flash look”. He prefers the look of Macromedia Director. He says he uses Flash because it’s quick and has a small download size. Another Flash animation of his that I like is Spoilsbury Toast Boy. Have a look at an episode of it at: http://www.fat-pie.com/spoilsminus2.htm.
I like the visual style and mood of Firth’s animations. I love the different dream-like worlds that he creates. Most videos and animations have a strong basis in reality, where as Firth is not ashamed to completely dive into the subconscious realities that, like in dreams - accept the abnormal as if it were the norm. In that way his works may be compared to those of other surrealist artists such a Salvidor Dali. I like Firth’s animations because they deal with subjects you don’t normally see people touch on. I also like the way he uses the sound for his animations. He draws inspiration from the feeling of a particular song and tries to create an animation to accompany it – sort of like a music video. This elevates the sound to a central feature of the animation rather than just background noise. He creates some of the music himself and also uses music from bands such as Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin. I think his animations are very creative and funny. I find surrealist works that deal with the subconscious and feelings to be an inspiration to me.
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this man is a genius
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