TECHNOVIKING ARCHIVE

Matthias Fritsch researched the internet history of his video Kneecam No.1 aka Technoviking from it's production until it became popular with more than 40 million clicks on the internet and more than three thousand video responses on YouTube. The archive contains images, emails, blogs, forum discussions and a selection of some hundered videoresponses which are categorized to show the different attempts of the Web 2.0's recycling culture.

The results are published in form of installation of the archive and lectures were Fritsch also shows the most interesting video responses. The artist illustrates new ways of production and distribution within user generated networks. From his experiences on the Technoviking Phenomenon Fritsch developed his following Work Music from the Masses.

Today the archive contains around 8 GB of data and is open for everybody on request to be shared for further research.

Radio-Feature on Corso / Deutschlandfunk (German)
Author: Carmela Thiele, Corso, DLF Köln
aired on 05 May 2009

Around christmas 2009 the video's protagonist send a lawyer to the filmmaker in order to stop all further publication of the clip. After not being able to find a compromise outside court the filmmaker is still waiting for the trail to come. The personality rights claim resulted in a temporary annontiations block of the original video on YouTube and within the Technoviking archive to a limitation of an only internal and offline use of images that show the protagonist.

Ever since the attention on the video is high up and hunderts of remix versions and responses to the video are published in the internet. Fans still imitate the video's dramaturgy and re-enacted it in their homes, in clubs or on the streets. A selection of transformations and re-enactments is published on the website Technoviking.tv.

Installation of the Technoviking-Archive in Nancyhalle, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2009
Basic Concept by Matthias Fritsch und Annabel Lange, Design & Installation by Oliver Boeg / Team Wahlheimat



	TECHNOVIKING ARCHIVE Archive for research on the Video Kneecam No.1 and the Technoviking Phenomenon, 2000-2011
	Matthias Fritsch researched the internet history of his video Kneecam No.1 aka Technoviking from it's production until it became popular with more than 40 million clicks on the internet and more than three thousand video responses on YouTube. The archive contains images, emails, blogs, forum discussions and a selection of some hundered videoresponses which are categorized to show the different attempts of the Web 2.0's recycling culture. The results are published in form of installation of the archive and lectures were Fritsch also shows the most interesting video responses. The artist illustrates new ways of production and distribution within user generated networks. From his experiences on the Technoviking Phenomenon Fritsch developed his following Work Music from the Masses. Today the archive contains around 8 GB of data and is open for everybody on request to be shared for further research. Radio-Feature on Corso / Deutschlandfunk (German) Author: Carmela Thiele, Corso, DLF Köln aired on 05 May 2009	Around christmas 2009 the video's protagonist send a lawyer to the filmmaker in order to stop all further publication of the clip. After not being able to find a compromise outside court the filmmaker is still waiting for the trail to come. The personality rights claim resulted in a temporary annontiations block of the original video on YouTube and within the Technoviking archive to a limitation of an only internal and offline use of images that show the protagonist. Ever since the attention on the video is high up and hunderts of remix versions and responses to the video are published in the internet. Fans still imitate the video's dramaturgy and re-enacted it in their homes, in clubs or on the streets. A selection of transformations and re-enactments is published on the website Technoviking.tv.
	Installation of the Technoviking-Archive in Nancyhalle, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2009 Basic Concept by Matthias Fritsch und Annabel Lange, Design & Installation by Oliver Boeg / Team Wahlheimat
	The Context
	The Techno Viking project is an example for the reordering, reediting and remaking of an "original" video in the internet. The original video is in analogy to genes called a meme. As such the original and its first clones, start to circulate within social networks, where the original mutates, competes with other originals and inherits. Becoming multiplied in this way, the original video becomes successful by reproducing itself, through various recycling techniques. In this way the Techno Viking project questions the creation's origin of such an internet hype. The popular result is not the beginning, but the the original + n, after being altered and filtered several times through a chain of actions and reactions.	The potential of public attention such clips raise, brings also attention to the role of such major companies as Google. Google as the owner of YouTube provides the basic technological structure not only to enable and control, but also to profit from such creations. If the creation is based on "free" social information networks, the product is commercialized through a monopole company. In this way the Techno Viking is a perfect example to illustrate such new ways of production and distribution within user generated networks.
	The Techno Viking The Techno Viking is a tall, muscular, charismatic, intimidating German man in his 30ies, that danced in front of the camera at the Fuckparade in Berlin in 2000. The Fuckparade emerged as a reaction to the music restriction (e.g. the exclusion of other techno styles as Gabber, Speedcore, Hardcore Techno or Punk music) of the Berlin Love Parade and its increasing commercialization, as well as a public demonstration against the shut down of the famous techno club "Bunker," (which serves as a home for a private art collection today.) The Techno Viking became famous firstly through the "Kneecam" video. A girl with heavy blue dyed hair is dancing to the rough techno beats, while a rather unruly looking guy, crashes unfriendly into her. That accident is causing the Techno Viking to demonstrate his physical power. He snatches the guy's arms and pushes him back from where he came dancing from. Pointing straight at another man and dominating him with his fiercely glance the Techno Viking produces an aura of fear, which brings the man to leave the situation. Only that incident enables the Techno Viking finally enough space to start dancing freely. His dance moves are wild and expressively but perfect in form. Soon he seems like the king of the street, having even fans, serving as "pop servants," supplying him with water bottles. At You Tube the fascination with the Techno Viking is expressed in several statements. One of the most famous lines started to reappear with the countless remakes of the "original" footage itself: "The Techno Viking doesn't dance to the music, but the music dances to the Techno Viking." After the most popular definition of Techno Viking published by Mister Neutral on the Urban Dictionary on February 16, 2008 that 3041 people liked and 55 hated in November 2011.
		What is the video of TECHNOVIKING? It is a short art video produced by Matthias Fritsch at the Fuckparade in Berlin on July 8th 2000. It's original title is "Kneecam No.1." Since it's dramaturgy and way of filming blures the border between fiction and documentary the original intention of publishing this art video was raising the question if the sequence is real or staged. In 2007 the video was discovered by the YouTube community and posted by users in various other platforms. After being linked and discussed in different web sites and internet forums it got uploaded on break.com, a big american media portal "for guys" where the video had it's peak on September 28th 2007 with more than a million viewers in one day. In the following 6 months the Video got more than 10 Million clicks under the new name of "Techno Viking". The video became an Internet Meme.

	User Examples Following a selection of the most interesting and popular video responses:
	Shortly after the main hype moderated clips were created to provide information about the new meme. A mixture of statistics, quotes and jokes make it easy to consume the semi documentations as the one from "Rocket Boom" Know Your Meme - Technoviking Another moderated clip from the internet television channel "Revision3" introduces even a subtitled video response to the Techno Viking with as a new cult video itself: Technoviking on Revision3. The clip refers to the captured version of Techno Viking of YouTube user "rawcore" that reached more than 5 million viewers on YouTube, break.com and other platforms. But the most interesting genre of recycling memes is the re-enactment of the clip's dramaturgy by being recreated in private and public space all over the world. A remix of more than 50 re-enactment Videos is published under the name "We TechnoViking" and a selection of re-enactments can be found on www.technoviking.tv The peoples fascination with Techno Viking's dancing skills create group choreographies as the PSU Techno Viking or the one from the AE Thesis Lab where a group of students is exercising the dancing technique.	The Techno Viking character even finds his way into the 3D worlds like here, where the Techno Viking like character "Mattias" from the shooter "Mercenaries" was animated to the exact dance moves of the meme or a virtual re-enactment in "World of Warcraft" The combination of one meme with another can raise the attention within the fan community and creates an overlapping mass to other internet hypes. Here it is throughout the use of Vernon Koekemoer and Chuck Norris in a "Streetfighter" lookalike clip "Technovikiung vs. Vernon Koecemoer" ...or the collages with "Little Indian Boy" or the main character of the cult movie "300" The users by far biggest recycling strategy is the simple change of the soundtrack without doing much with the videolayers. There the Techno Viking clip was combined with all kinds of music genres like metal, folk music, 80ies classics etc.
	After Techno Viking
	From the experience with the TechnoViking phenomenon and by using the user's most popular recycling strategy Fritsch developed the Work "Music from the Masses." Following a five year schedule he started to publish silent movies in the internet along with an open call for composers, musicians, sound designers and everybody else to create soundtracks accompanying the silent clips. The submitted contributions are published in the web in combination with the video as music clips. The work is an open edition and will not have a calculated end. It will be furthermore possible to always add new compositions and variations. This generic model of recycling and resembling is producing a situation that can be called "Youtube-Reality." It is a reality where the setting of an original identity is in constant and uncontrollable aesthetic modification. For more information go to the project

The Context

The Techno Viking

What is the video of TECHNOVIKING?

User Examples

After Techno Viking