Traceroute

Traceroute is a 2016 Austrian-American documentary film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The autobiographical documentary and road movie deals with the history, politics and impact of nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a "personal journey into the uncharted depths of nerd culture, a realm full of dangers, creatures and more or less precarious working conditions", an attempt to "chase the ghosts of nerddom's past, present and future." The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and Reisenbauer Film. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Hans Nieswandt, and many others. Concept Artist and self-declared nerd Johannes Grenzfurthner is documenting his personal road trip from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United States, to introduce the audience to places and people that shaped and inspired his art and politics. Traceroute is a reflection on Grenzfurthner's own roots of nerddom, an "On the road style romp across the United States as he visits icons of the counterculture, the outré, and the generally questionable." Grenzfurthner summarizes the concept in an interview for Boing Boing: "It is a film on biographies and obsessions and spaces of possibility – in other words something between loving embrace and merciless vivisection. Maintaining a critical meta-outlook was just as important to me as abandoning myself to unfathomable stammerings of adoration. And that all works for one simple reason: because I take a step forward, introducing myself and confessing my guilt like in Alcoholics Anonymous, only to then take off and visit the best whiskey distilleries. In my case these destinations are not whiskey makers, but people and places and symbols of a very special pop culture." On Film Threat he adds: "It was important for me to take nerddom apart, not only analyzing it, but also excavating its potential for greatness." The film incorporates art and illustrations by James Brothwell, Bonni Rambatan, Michael Marrak, Karin Frank, Ben Lawson, Michael Zeltner, Josh Ellingson and eSeL in a cinematic collage that draws inspiration from 1990s fanzine and punk aesthetics, BBS culture, ANSI art and fantastic art. UK Film Review's Hannah Sayer summarizes the artistic style of the film in her review: "There is a real sense that this is a collaborative exploration of creativity: of the old and the new, the past and the present, and the traditional and the digital.