The four-minute video shot by experimental video artist Matthias Fritsch at the Fuckparade on 8 July 2000[1] begins with the title "Kneecam No. 1". The camera is focused on a group of people dancing to techno music,[2] with a blue-haired woman in front. A man stumbles into the scene and grabs the woman. The eponymous "Techno Viking", a muscular bare-chested man so-named because he is wearing a Mjölnir pendant and has a blond braid and a beard, enters the scene by grabbing the man by the arms, with the camera showing the confrontation. The Techno Viking pushes the man back in the direction he came, looking at him sternly and then pointing his finger at him to warn him to behave.[a]
Fritsch uploaded the video to the internet in 2001.[3] Fritsch intended to raise questions of whether the action was real or staged.[1] In 2006 an unknown user re-published it to YouTube, and it went viral in 2007. According to Fritsch, its popularity began on a Central American pornography site.[4]
After being posted on Break.com, it peaked on 28 September at more than 1million views per day and was watched by over 10million people over 6 months. More than 700 responses and edited versions were posted.[1][5][6][7] It was the #1 clip on Rude Tube's series-three episode Drink and Drugs.[8] Mathew Cullen and Weezer wanted to include Techno Viking in their compilation of Internet memes for the "Pork and Beans" music video but were unable to.[9] Techno Viking was also rendered in oils as part of a series on internet memes.[10]
By mid-2010, the video had generated over 20million hits on YouTube alone;[3]as of January2013[update], the original version had more than 16million views.[4] Fritsch mounted an installation and the online Techno Viking Archive "to research the strategies of participatory practice in digital social networks"[11] and presented lectures on the reception of the video. His Music from the Masses project was suggested by the Techno Viking experience: it explores web collaboration by providing silent films for artists to provide soundtracks.[1][3][6][11] In response to legal action by the man featured in the video, access to the Techno Viking video itself has been restricted and annotations on YouTube blocked since late 2009.[1]
Identity and lawsuit
Some suspected Keith Jardine was the Techno Viking before the actual man's lawyer stated this to not be the case.
Fritsch did not know the man's name at the time of filming.[4][6][12] A man who appeared in the 2009 "Bodybuilding" broadcast of the German television show segment Raab in Gefahr[13] was taken to be Techno Viking in a YouTube upload.[14] In 2008, fans claimed MMA fighter Keith Jardine was Techno Viking.[15] The lawyer of the Techno Viking asserts that his client had never been a public figure and that he did not want to become one.[16]
The unnamed man's court case against Fritsch concerning infringement of personality rights opened in Berlin on 17 January 2013.[4][17][18] In June, a decision was reached for the plaintiff and Fritsch was ordered to pay the man €13,000 in damages, almost all he had made from YouTube ads and sales of Techno Viking merchandise, plus €10,000 in court costs, and to cease publication of his image.[12][19][20][21][22]
Documentary film
Fritsch raised money with a crowdfunding campaign to make a documentary film about the case, The Story of Technoviking,[21] which was released in 2015.[23]
Notes
↑ In the full video the offender is seen later, sitting on the back of a truck as the camera is turned to the side for a few seconds.
↑ "Bodybuilding" (Sendung 8888)Archived 2011-03-19 at the Wayback Machine , Raab im Gefahr 20 February 2009, TV Total, Brainpool, 2011, retrieved 7 February 2011 (in German); the man calls himself "Harry the old Teuton".
↑ Technoviking on "Raab in Gefahr"Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine , uploaded to YouTube 1 October 2007, removed 25 December 2009; documented at YouTomb with screenshots; YouTomb presents him as being Techno Viking and says he calls himself "Harry the old Viking".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.