Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 26, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
According to its own account, the Bremen company Kubikfoto developed the world’s first interactive music clip. For the song “Neuruppin” by Berlin rap group K.I.Z., it designed an online presentation that radically broke with the stylistic conventions of ordinary videos. Kubikfoto developed a new multimedia format that enabled fans to explore the music on their own, without directorial guidance or predetermined image sequences. Moods became spaces that could be entered with a mouse click. Users surfed through a scene in which new paths constantly opened and an apparently endless number of surprising details waited to be discovered. “Songs tell stories in another dimension,” Kubikfoto said of the effect. The implementation of “Neuruppin,” however, had fewer parallels with classic music videos than with computer games, in which users must explore spaces and confront puzzles.
“Digital media have increased expectations of interactivity. One-way formats such as the music video are losing their appeal. It is time to move forward. Whether the music industry joins in or not, people want to participate,” explained Ole Leifels and Holger J. Weber, photographers and co-founders of Bremen-based Kubikfoto GmbH, which specialized in interactive, freely explorable photographic worlds for presenting products, events, and spaces. They regarded transferring the aesthetics of photography and video into interactivity as an exciting challenge: “Virtual realities can quickly seem cold or artificial. For the emotional quality of music, that is a killer.”
Even the first excerpts from “Neuruppin” suggested that Kubikfoto’s presentation was at least as gruesome and bloody as the lyrics, in which a serial killer speaks freely about his crimes. K.I.Z. and Kubikfoto were not concerned that this might prevent distribution on mainstream platforms such as music channels—quite the opposite. “The interactive music video deliberately crosses boundaries and provokes, which is typical of K.I.Z. It had to be a track that does not leave you cold, one that is exciting,” Ole Leifels explained.
Bremen psychology professor and management consultant Peter Kruse, responsible for strategy and principles at Kubikfoto, was convinced that online visitors to the clip would quickly understand the opportunities Kubikfoto offered the music industry. “You may or may not like the K.I.Z. song and its realization in the clip. Kubikfoto, however, opens completely new avenues of expression for musicians and could help alleviate the industry’s problems.”
Further Links:
- K.I.Z. “Neuruppin” (ages 18 and over)
