Synopsis:  In We Live in Public, director Ondi Timoner follows Internet pioneer Josh Harris as he launches his art experiment “Quiet: We Live in Public.”  100-plus artists moved into pods under 24-hour surveillance.  They literally lived their lives under constant watch.  After only 30 days the project was shut down (FEMA declared the group a millennial cult), so Harris convinced his girlfriend to allow him to rig their apartment with 32 motion-sensor cameras to record every waking (and non-waking) moments of their lives.  Not long after, their relationship buckles under the weight of the project and Harris becomes mentally unstable.  Timoner deftly combines her own footage with the footage Harris captured himself and creates a disturbing, yet fascinating story of the effects of our new media infatuated culture. 

Review:  Director Ondi Timoner did a good job of telling the story of Josh Harris as he spends he money getting weirder and weirder.  Harris the founder of Psuedo.com, the web’s first television network, made a ton of money during the Internet boom years in the 1990’s.  He spent his money lavishly, including creating a commune of artists where every moment of every day was captured on film.  No matter where a person went in the commune (including to the bathroom) it was filmed.  Harris’ premise with the commune was that the Internet was the beginning of the end for privacy, so he created a glimpse into the future. 

The commune experiment, which was shut down by New York and Federal authorities because it was deemed a millennial cult (this was just before the turn of the century) lasted just 30 days but built a reputation for Harris as a madman-genius and the “Andy Warhol of the web.”  For Harris, the experiment ended too soon, so he took to the concept of “no privacy” into his own life and set up 24-hour video surveillance in the apartment he shared with his girlfriend.  As the experiment wore on and the couple was viewed by more and more people on the web, Harris sank into a kind of psychotic state, leading to his girlfriend leaving him and the “no privacy” experiment ending.  Disillusioned and completely separated from his family, Harris then buys an apple farm with the intention of settling into a more “normal” life.  He then disappears for a time and eventually turns up in a small village in Africa, broke and with no direction in his life. 

We Live in Public is an incredibly interesting film about someone you’ve probably never heard of, but who has done some pretty amazing and weird things.  During the film, I found myself first disliking Harris, then appreciating his vision, and in the end feeling sorry for him because he has no (or very few) friends, has chosen to alienate himself from his family, and seems to have no prospects for the future.   It seemed a rather sad ending for a guy who had done some pretty remarkable things.  Then I reminded myself, Harris is still a fairly young guy.  He may have an encore for all of us.

 (3.5 out of 5.0)

Film Website: http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/

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