We Live In Public

We Live In Public (2009)
Directed by Ondi Timoner
Starring Josh Harris

Brilliant, fascinating, well worth watching. Winner of the 2009 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, this remarkable documentary details the experiences of Josh Harris 'the greatest internet pioneer you've never heard of'. Amassed from footage shot over 10yrs and cut down from over 5000 hours of material, Timoner paints a fascinating, implosive, portrait, a rags to riches to rags tale of a contemporary genius-madman-artist-svengali.

Harris was an early internet hero, a dot-com boomer, a man who turned his vision of 'the future of online communication' into a practical interactive internet experience 10 years too early. In his process of creative invention Harris's net worth shot up to 80 million dollars. The search for personal fame is what truly motivated Harris and we get to share in the excess and experimentation that big money can bring to someone with wild and brilliant ideas. You have to respect Harris for living his dream and spending his money to execute his grand ideas.

Harris uses riches gained from his Silicon Valley backed internet company (Pseudo) to create a one of kind interactive, big brother type experiment on 'the effects of media and technology on the human identity'. It took place over 30 days in NYC using 100 people. Everyone is locked into a building, a mini society where drugs, food and clothes are provided, alongside a shooting range. The participants wear uniforms and sleep in bed-pods, they are interrogated and constantly filmed. Harris creates this society so that he can call the shots, control people, makes the rules, garner information. Its fascinating to see what goes down and how the experiment affects the participants both positively and negatively. The experiment is shut down by the police on the 1st day of the year 2000.

During all the chaos and problems Harris experiences (with his shut down society experiment) he manages to fall in love. Sadly Harris soon turns the cameras on his own relationship, rigging their nyc loft with 30 cameras and broadcasting the relationship on the internet for all to see. This experiment lasts only 6 months and their relationship of course crumbles. With no money left, Harris gives it all in and disappears only to show up years later as an apple farmer.

Harris was right about a lot of things regarding the internet and in this doc its plain to see that his thoughts and prophecies have come true. Its amazing to watch Harris live fearlessly and implode as he experiments with people and money, his brain trying to find patterns and meaning. He is on a quest for information and understanding, but at what cost, his own sanity. Underneath all the posturing and games is a serious man with serious intellect and brilliant ideas who is willing to put it all on the line, so you gotta respect that. Timoner stuck in there and finally got her story after years, all the fragments come together in her compelling and thought provoking film.

Well worth watching, a must own DVD.