"We Live in Public"

Posted to Arts and Entertainment by Angela Case at 5:50 p.m., March 8, 2009

I went into the showing of "We Live in Public" at the Blue Note on Friday night expecting a documentary about a bold social experiment. To some extent, that’s what the movie was. More specifically, though, it was a riveting, thought-provoking, and even horrifying view of the internet’s influence in modern society.

The film chronicled the work of internet pioneer Josh Harris, most notably his bold social experiment, “Quiet: We Live in Public,” in which Harris created an underground habitat in which 100 people lived under constant surveillance for 30 days. Every single moment of their lives was captured on film, and the clips included in "We Live in Public" provided a riveting glimpse into the psychological effects of the experiment on its subjects. After 30 days, the habitat was shut down by the government, so Harris and his girlfriend became subjects. They lived under constant 24-hour surveillance, and invited internet users to comment on their video, essentially inviting the entire public into the most intimate moments of their lives.

The filmmakers of We Live in Public used Harris’s experiment as an extreme example of the devastating impact that loss of privacy can have on one’s psyche. Much more than just a biography of an entrepreneur or a documentary chronicling a social experiment, "We Live in Public" made a bold, thought-provoking statement about the increasing influence of the internet on modern lifestyles.