Cyber trolls of today have their origins in Scandinavian folklore. In these ancient myths they are described as hairy and ugly, with large noses, jutting lower jaws and protruding brows, sounding uncannily like our popular stereotype of a Neanderthal. Could these tales be archaic stories of our early encounters with other humans, as we invaded Europe?
The myths reveal more about us than them, reflecting our fascination and fear of the strangely familiar yet different other. The trolls are mostly depicted as dangerous, threatening troublemakers, giving us the excuse to inflict extreme violence on them although rarely in the stories are they aggressive towards humans.
All people of European descent have roughly 1 to 4 % Neanderthal DNA in their genome
In the video Homo-Neandertroll, synthetic hair extensions are amassed to create a composite being; sapien, neanderthal and troll. The camera follows the phantom figure through the landscape. Are we it or perusing it? Are we observed by a third entity? The image is constantly splitting and divisions intensified by the use of multiple screens from which spectral light effects conjure up ghost DNA.
