In 2000, German visual artist Matthias Fritsch took his video camera to Berlin’s Fuck Parade – an underground counter to the city’s Love Parade – and recorded a short video that would become one of the internet’s first viral videos: Technoviking.
What you probably didn’t know is Fritsch has spent the last 15 years analysing the cultural impact of the video, and how it went from an unknown video on his website – dubbed Kneecam 01 – to being renamed Technoviking, and how it was subsequently remixed, memed, and copied in true internet style for years.
“The documentary follows the Technoviking phenomenon over 15 years from an experimental art film to a viral video that inspired an internet community to the creation of an art figure, thousands of remixes, besides countless other forms of commercial and non commercial reactions, and finally put the producer of the original artifact into the court room.”
Since then Fritsch was sued by the viking himself and won, and now has crowdfunded a documentary that tells the whole story.
Via Crack Magazine
The Story Of Technoviking – Short Version – English Subtitles from Matthias Fritsch on Vimeo.
