Liquid Mountaineering – Can You Walk on Water?

How many of you have heard about Liquid Mountaineering? I’m guessing unless you’ve hardwired yourself into the latest sporting revolutions coming out of Europe this might have passed you by, I know my gaze is usually to the East when it comes to spotting the next installment of what the FiretrUCK. When the Daily Maverick ran this story curiosity drew me in.

“Liquid Mountaineering may be the biggest human breakthrough this century and it’s already uniting open minded athletes around the world. The mantra, “you have to believe” has become a new call to arms for those tired of simply swimming, bathing and drinking water. You have to believe.”

Liquid Mountaineering deals with notion of water walking, pioneered by one J Christ some 2000 years ago. Here’s the story:

How radical is that? The JC rearview mirror accessory for inspiration, the jet ski for extra speed, the South African sounding Sebastian Vanderwerf… solid. Now when this first hit the interwebs, it naturally drew critics from every angle. Is this actually possible? Is it conceivable that water tension could hold a human weight? The subtle Hi-Tec branding in the video brought the critics to roost outside the Hi-Tec UK office. They denied knowledge of the sport, someone saw a gap and passed the buck, “Hi-Tec Poland probably did it…” and that appeased the media for a few days, evidently Hi-Tec Poland seem to be the maverick renegade members of the family, culpable of playing God with footwear.

On Monday, Hi Tec put their hands up and admitted the Liquid Mountaineering video was their baby, and in fact just a marketing campaign. Amsterdam’s CCCP agency were assigned the brief, “make Hi-Tek famous,” the result of their efforts registered as nearly 4,500,000 views on youtube, and a number of people trying to run the FiretrUCK across water. Beautiful!

The effort CCCP went to foster Liquid Mountaineering was immense, creating back stories, blogs and Facebook pages preceding the viral campaign by 6 months. Not all the response has been positive, apparently some people are irate that they’ve been mislead, and lied to, duped into believing that they might actually be able to realise their dream of running across their favorite lake. I think the entire campaign is sensational, not only in execution, but from concept to creation it looks like it was a complete riot, a hysterical act of cognitive brilliance making this world a more fantastic place.

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~ by bowlphilosophy on June 4, 2010.