RSS
Home
We Live In Public--this movie raises challenging spiritual questions
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Now appearing in theaters around the country is the winner of the 2009 Grand Jury Prize for a US Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, We Live In Public . This is the story of Internet pioneer extraordinaire, Josh Harris . who in the early 1990's had a clear vision that the Web would seduce us into living lives of voyeurs and exhibitionists. We would do this, he believed, without considering the consequences. He was and is right about that.
In many ways, the Josh Harris presented in the movie is more pathetic than sympathetic. .jpg)
Directed by Ondi Timoner, We Live In Public is a psychoanalyst's dream come true. Beginning in childhood and continuing throughout his life, the Josh Harris story paints the portrait of a child and adult who never bonded with his mother, felt disconnected from his family and lived vicariously through television programs, especially Gilligan's Island.
The movie is a wild romp through Josh's version of reality. Josh is smart, really smart--and neurotic. He made $80 million in the early years of the dot-com revolution and eventually lost it all.
In 1993 he founded Pseudo.com and in 1999 spent millions to establish an experimental underground community in a basement on lower Broadway in Manhattan. The idea was to create a technological fishbowl where every person in the "bunker" was on camera, 24/7. If you were an artist who bought into Josh's grand experiment, you agreed to have your most intimate moments--from the bathroom to the bedroom--captured on video. He called this artistic experiment, Quiet: We Live in Public.
In Josh's mind, Quiet was at once art and social commentary.
The story deepens as Josh's artistic/social experiment evolves into a more personal narrative. He and his girl friend move in together and cameras record their every move, their every conversation, their hot and cold moments--all of which result in an emotional crisis leading to Josh's "breakdown".
Eventually, Josh figures out how to reconstruct his life.
We Live In Public is not only about Josh, but all of us who increasingly devote our time and energy (our very lives) to virtual reality. According to Josh--and it's hard to argue with him about this--the Internet revolution makes us especially vulnerable to the desire (hidden or otherwise) to be famous.
Before you disagree, consider Facebook, MySpace along with the ever expanding number of social networking websites. Don't we use these Internet tools to make ourselves more visible, hoping to make our every movement, or at least what matters to us, important to others? It is a primal human need to be seen by other human beings.
This desire to be recognized is innate to our humanity, which is why our children call out to us, "Hey! Look at me! Watch me!" To be seen by others feels like a confirmation of our existence. It's a celebration of the fact that we are alive and that we matter.
Whenever I attend a fundraising event, I marvel at how often people scurry to have their picture taken with the celebrity-in-attendance. We feel important when we are seen and photographed with a celebrity. Subconsciously, we hope that a brush with celebrity will rub off on us and perhaps make us famous. It's easy to confuse a brush with celebrity with a moment of greatness.
As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, "Everyone has the power of greatness. Not for fame but greatness-because greatness is determined by service."
Ir is all too easy to confuse fame with greatness.
That said, there's nothing like a little recognition to make us feel good about ourselves. The problem is that we are conditioned to believe that gaining the recognition of others is the key to living a life of value. Practically every culture worships celebrity--celebrity validates one's existence.
As Andy Warhol famously put it, we all want our fifteen minutes. Josh Harris argues we really want 15 minutes of fame every day--I suspect he's not far from the truth.
We Live In Public is an important and provocative movie for our time. It asks us questions like, "who do you think you are--do you want the details of your life made public? Who do you think you are--do you believe that a social networking or email correspondence is the equivalent to having a real relationship with another human being--or more specifically, do you think a virtual relationship a real relationship?
Who are you? What are you willing to share in public? How can we use Internet technology to humanize rather than manipulate the masses?
I loved and hated We Live In Public.
I loved it because it challenges our unquestioned assumptions about life in the 21st century. I hated it because it holds before us a mirror of what we are becoming--individually and collectively--and much of it is not pretty.
Internet technology is neither good nor bad. The challenging and difficult question before us is how do we choose to live with it?
Go see the movie and add your voice to this important conversation.
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
