| WE LIVE IN PUBLIC | |
| Director: | Ondi Timoner |
| Producer: | Ondi Timoner Keirda Bahruth |
| Starring: | Josh Harris |
| Editing: | Ondi Timoner Joshua Altman |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $41,711[1] |
We Live In Public is a 2009 documentary film by Ondi Timoner about Internet pioneer Josh Harris, indirectly highlighting the loss of privacy in the Internet age.
The film details the experiences of Josh Harris, a dot-com millionaire who founded Pseudo.com, and who became interested in human experiments testing the effects of media and technology on the development of personal identity. To that end, Harris created the art project "Quiet: We Live in Public", which placed more than one hundred artists in a human terrarium under New York City, with a myriad of webcams following and capturing their every move.[2] Each pod was outfitted by artist Jeff Gompertz[3] with cameras and screens to allow every occupant to monitor every other pod. Following that project, Harris broadcast his own life in his loft online for six months using 30 surveillance cameras and 66 microphones, "becoming the rat in his own experiment"[4] and ultimately causing the breakup of himself and his girlfriend.
The film includes commentary from Internet personalities Chris DeWolfe, Jason Calacanis, Douglas Rushkoff, and venture capitalist Fred Wilson, as well as artists and producers involved in the "Quiet: We Live in Public" event such as V. Owen Bush, Jeff Gompertz, Leo Fernekes, Feedbuck, Leo Koenig, Gabriella Latessa, Alex Arcadia, Zeroboy, and Alfredo Martinez.[5]
We Live in Public was screened six times at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival before being awarded the Grand Jury Prize award in the U.S. documentary category.[6] Timoner is the first director in the Sundance Film Festival's history to win the Grand Jury Prize award twice.[7] The film was also the runner-up for Best Documentary at the 2009 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.[8]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 82% approval rating, based on 51 reviews. The critics consensus says, "This documentary about Josh Harris' surveillance-as-art project exposes the problems of privacy in the internet age and asks provocative questions about the power of ego in a place where everything is on display." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, his highest rating, and wrote, "This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man."[9]