Public Image Limited: The Rise and Fall of an Internet Pioneer

Up until recently, I spent much of my day online--not only for my day job at the Austin Film Society but also for myself after hours, in the form of my blog, Doc It Out--posting to Twitter and Facebook, monitoring what other bloggers were writing and Tweeting, engaging others in conversations over the Internet. The conversations have become intricate and beyond movies, from my music selections being displayed or shared via playlists to how I'm reacting to the current political crisis of the day to sharing personal news like my mood or a fun date. Depending on the individual, the lines between our "real" lives and our online "lives" are either strong, obvious boundaries or very fuzzy or even non-existent.

We Live in Public director Ondi Timoner dubs her subject Josh Harris "the greatest Internet pioneer you never heard of." You haven't heard of him because his rise to, and fall from, Internet stardom happened before the majority of us were engaged online. Remember when you logged on mainly to check e-mail? Broadband access to the net has opened the floodgate to online television and realtime streaming. Harris foresaw that we would be online in such a way back in the 1990s. It was his Internet television channel, Pseudo.com, that showed us early on what might be possible on the Web--but it was the Wild West then, without limits.

As you watch We Live in Public, you see that when an extraordinarily creative mind meets boatloads of money, crazy shit can happen. Imagine living in an underground bunker where a pod only slightly larger than your body is your personal space and everywhere, including your pod, is rigged with video cameras recording and broadcasting your every move, fart, toenail clipping...Even your shower is fair game. This is the world of "Quiet," Harris' creation.

The rules to participate were simple: You agree to stay the whole time and trade in your image and privacy. In return, you can do whatever you want. And there are people who are fun, creative and exciting and use this space to create their visions. They take on the challenge with gusto and they rarely seem cognizant of the cameras. Or perhaps hypersensitivity fuels outrageousness? It's up to you to interpret the art and emotions you see. Every second of "Quiet" foreshadows reality TV.

But the Internet money bubble burst and many of those early pioneers lost all they had. Without broadband, what was delivered was of such terrible quality that they couldn't sustain their business models. While businesses crashed, engineers were improving the technology at lightening speed to get back ahead of the connectivity curve. Harris, rather than going back to work to capitalize on hardware and software development, decided to turn the cameras onto himself and his girlfriend and their lives in a posh New York City apartment.

To watch their relationship crescendo and then fall apart over a short six months due in no small part to the constant surveillance of their lives, including running commentary and discussion with fans, is incredibly sad at times. The couple's relationship could not withstand the pressure, and they each lost what may have been a true love. Or so it seems. Harris changes himself so completely from one lifestyle to another that it is difficult to know if we ever see the real Josh Harris. Check out this clip from a Q&A where a fan wonders how Harris could let down his fans by ending his public life:

Charisma and creativity permeate Harris nearly as much as unpredictability and meanness. After completely disconnecting from life on the net to a bucolic life overseeing an apple orchard, then to one of deprivation in Ethiopia (did he have this documentary in mind when he made that choice?), Harris returned to the States for an April screening of We Live In Public as part of New Director/New Films series at MoMA, which Timoner reports has purchased a print of the film for its permanent collection. Passing on attending Sundance or SXSW screenings, Harris always wanted to have one of his art pieces in MoMA, and so We Live in Public became a full collaboration between filmmaker and subject.

Both Timoner and Harris show their capacities for creating the success they seek. Both have created artwork and are able to bring their work to audiences through the Internet. Take a quick pass over the We Live in Public website, and you will see video clips to all kinds of extra content beyond the film, written and video Q&As, press reviews, news, a blog, and links to all of their social networks (@wlip on Twitter). If you examine the site without watching the film, you'll be intrigued by this odd story. If you leave the theater scratching your head and find your way to the site, there's plenty to add to the discussion in your mind. This is a provocative film.

Also of note for the documentary community, Timoner is self-distributing her film in a nationwide roll-out that launches August 28 at the IFC Center in New York , continues September 4 in Boston and September 24 in Los Angeles, then moves to San Francisco, Austin, Chicago and Seattle. Giving plenty of time for word-of-mouth to build seems to be working for other recent releases like Food, Inc. and The Cove.

What people have appreciated about my blog is that I relate to the films I write about; they have effected me in some way that I manage to articulate. We Live in Public cuts close and personal to me as I, like Harris, have withdrawn from my online life in an effort to recharge the drained energy from always being "plugged in." Timoner notes, "My son says, ‘My mind is an iPhone,' and my nephew is on Facebook. They have no distinction between public and private." Young people are growing up not knowing anything but plugged in, turning Josh's story into a cautionary tale of the potential destructiveness of constant online "life."

I'm painting a bleak vision, but it's not without hope. Timoner points out that "reconnecting with old friends, or access to immediate information" are positive aspects to connectivity. She has created an engaging story, and countless other artists have been similarly inspired by Harris and the artists he inspired and fostered. In Timoner's MoMA Q&A, she maintained that she would keep following Josh in another documentary. With that, Timoner exposes what so many reality producers have already figured out--it's fabulously entertaining to watch people fall and get back up again.

Agnes Varnum is communications manager at the Austin Film Society.