Review: ‘We Live In Public’ A Fascinating Portrait Of A Man Ahead Of His Time

Some of our younger readers may not remember a time when the Internet wasn’t delivered with blazing broadband speed, or offered the kinds of services we now take for granted. For us oldtimers, when we first logged onto the Internet, it was largely BBS groups and Freenets and as a whole, the online world was more or less like a giant message board. Back in those days, 56k dialup speeds were coveted, and we logged in to check our email to the glorious squall of connection noise and blinking lights on our modems.

In those days, it was hard to imagine the kind of online world we have now where our lives – everything from shopping to watching TV to organizing social activities – are funneled through an ethernet cable. Well, way back in those early days of the Internet, one person did envision the Internet as a place that would become inseparable from our daily lives. His name was Josh Harris – “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of” – and he was one of the early dot com success stories whose ascent into fame and fortune was quick, while his crash into irrelevancy was even faster.

Ondi Timonen (“Dig!”) first met Josh Harris in the mid ’90s, when after becoming a multimillionaire with his company Jupiter Communications, he launched Pseudo.com, an Internet television company founded years before broadband would even become available. While Harris was a successful and powerful media figure, we was drawn into New York’s modern art circle and quickly began throwing legendary parties which not only attracted all kinds of media artists and performers, but allowed the introverted Harris to be the center of their world. Harris even created an alter ego, Luvvy, a demented clown that soon consumed him. He would attend meetings and greet clients in character much to the dismay of his colleagues. Bored with Pseudo.com, Harris left to focus on another ahead-of-the-curve media project that would be the start of his downfall.

Dubbed Quiet, Harris’ pre-millennial project found him creating an underground hotel in Manhattan where participants would be allowed to stay for free – with all their necessities including food taken care of – in exchange for being filmed 24/7, completing a rigorous personality survey and allowing themselves to be subject to Stasi like “interviews” (Harris even hired former FBI interrogators in order to break subjects down). Moreover, each participant would a TV in their “pod” (sleeping area) that would allow them to tune in to any other camera in the hotel. The project became a sensation, with the one hundred spaces filling up quickly.

Once the project began, in early December 1999 it quickly became clear that the event was nothing more than a plaything for Harris, who, while a participant himself, seemed to revel in making decisions behind the curtain that would increase the sex and drama occurring within the confines of Quiet. If anything came out of Quiet, it was the knowledge people’s inhibitions in close quarters will eventually fall away even if they are on camera. Sex, nudity and violence became de rigeur in the space, and you didn’t even have to leave your “pod” (the term used for the individual living areas) to tune in.

While the project was shut down by police, by then, Harris was already bored, but energized by what he learned at Quiet, moved on to his next big idea, We Live In Public. What he realized years before network CEOs would figure it out, is that people love reality programming. With We Live In Public, Harris and his girlfriend Tanya Corrin wired very square inch of their house and put their entire life online, and launched a website where people could log in, watch and chat. But what Harris didn’t bank on was, just like Jon & Kate, once the relationship was ending, audiences were initially thrilled to have an insider’s look and input into what was happening, but quickly disappeared once Corrin left the house. With this project dead, and teetering on bankruptcy, Harris then promptly disappeared.

Timonen, who has the unique position of sitting on ten years worth of compiled footage, paints a compelling portrait of a man whose genius preceded development as well as his own common sense. Harris comes off as a man continually trying to find his place in the world, but crippled by his need to be center of attention. As a cautionary tale about the continual technological creep into our every day lives, the film is slightly less successful, as it uses to the worst case examples to make its case. Whether or not we like it, the Internet is here to stay and it requires a balance between one’s online and real life in order to remain healthy and happy, and we think that’s something most people can agree on. Of course, too much of anything is a bad thing, but the film is far too vague in this area to make a real point.

Overall, Timonen’s film is highly enjoyable, if somewhat conventional, and true to her musical roots, its scored wall-to-wall with great tunes. In particular, there is great montage during the Quiet segment set to a Sigur Ros song, and we would love to mention some of the other carefully placed tracks but as of press time, we couldn’t obtain a list of the songs used from the film’s publicists. And while the filmmakers are hoping for an Oscar nod (we viewed them film as part of their historic, online Academy screening), which we think isn’t out of the question, we don’t think it’s the best documentary we’ve seen this year as “The Cove” is going to be pretty hard to beat. [B]