Matthias Fritsch
[DE]
“Technoviking Skulpturen – Teilabguss nach Original von Shinya Yamaoka” (2010)
Internet memes question authorship and property, subjects that are examined by Matthias Fritsch.
In 2006 he published a video on YouTube entitled “Kneecam No. 1”, a short video of a man resembling a Viking, dancing behind a truck at the famous Berlin Fuckparade. The video was such a success that, within a blink of an eye, it had attracted more than 17 million views and a fan base that began re-enacting, re-mixing, and copying the scene. The video’s protagonist was also baptized as the Technoviking. Fritsch began collecting his fanbase’s output, and re-using the material for his artwork. His work inspired other artists, for example Shinya Yamaoka, who created a Technoviking statue of which Fritsch took a collection of casts of its head.
Matthias Fritsch lives in Berlin. He studied Media Art at the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe (HfG) in Germany, as well as Film, Fine Art, and Curating at Bard College’s Centre for Curatorial Studies (CCS) in New York State. He has made several short and long movies, and media-based installations.