we live in public: reflection post

Answers to the questions:

1)     Do you think you would ever have participated in such an experiment? If so, could you have imagined the extremes the film reveals? I don’t think I could have participated in Josh Harris’ experiment. To have a camera on you for 24 hours a day, capturing every move that you make, particularly in this extreme, can cause serious self-deprecation. People in this experiment were having breakdowns because of the mental and emotional impacts this experiment had on them. It was obvious to me that perhaps these people were in it to just see what it would to them, and they didn’t like who they saw once they reflected on their lack of privacy. But that was the price they paid for submitting themselves to such an experiment. Personally, for me, I don’t think my life would have been as extremely portrayed on camera as the experiment’s participants’ were, but I still wouldn’t want my life exposed like that.

2)    Where in the film is privacy explicitly discussed? The first mention of privacy in the film is when Josh Harris himself discusses the lack of it in his own family when he was growing up. He felt alienated by his siblings and his own mother, which made him resort to watching television and being addicted to watching shows like “Gilligan’s Island.”

3)    Who talks about privacy? Is this a person/persons in power? What kind? In a sense, everyone who is interviewed in this film discusses privacy at length, but mainly Josh Harris, who is the focus for the film, discusses it the most.  He was in power for some time over people’s privacy during his experiment, but then lost it all. Other people who discuss privacy are the participants, work colleagues, and his family members.

4)     Whose privacy is at stake? How are this person/person empowered or disempowered?The theme of this film is that everyone’s privacy is at stake.  Josh Harris, who had control of privacy when he was conducting his experiment, starts off as empowered (knowing all the money could make off of it and how much power he had over the people in it) eventually becomes disempowered as he recognized the danger of what “living in public” did to him.  But mainly anyone who associates themselves with internet is risking themselves to exposure to the public eye.

5)     Can you relate to either of these people/groups (see #2 and #3)? How? Why? I think that everyone can relate to the idea of not having privacy when they want it. I know in my family that there are members who probably wish that their secrets have not been spread within the family.

6)    Many people have described Josh Harris as "prescient," as a man capable of foreseeing the future. In what way? What did he foresee? How accurate was his vision? Josh Harris predicted that the Internet would ultimately be our future and the way we communicate would change because of it. He was accurate, especially once he started Pseudo, which was claimed as the first internet television network. Pseudo paved the way for websites such as Facebook and Youtube have its members post videos to display themselves, just as Pseudo did.

7)    How does Harris' status at the end of the film speak to the matter of privacy as it's explored in the film? With the downfall of “We Live in Public,” Josh Harris decided to disappear from the virtual world. Although he tried to make a comeback years after “Quiet” ended, he was rejected by the major internet moguls of the time, and with that, he carried on his life in private. It seems as though this particular experience made him realize that he needed to shut himself away from the world to escape the themes he himself were trying to pursue as an “internet pioneer,” such as conformity, invasion, and ownership of people.

8)     Find out (by whatever means) what Harris is up to now. The film, out in 2009, provides only that very dated information. What else can we learn? As of 2013, in a recent article, Josh Harris can be found giving his opinion about Broadway and the theater, as seen here, “And Internet guru Josh Harris said producers need to open the entire process to the outside world, including video cameras backstage to capture actors getting ready and even having the orchestra pit filled with people interacting with the audience via their electronic devices.” I found the article here at this link: http://news.yahoo.com/conference-suggests-ways-broadway-better-005800267.html.

9)     Does your discovery regarding Harris change your thinking about his "work"? Even though he’s not affiliated with the Internet anymore, it seems as though Harris is still very much interested in camera work and documenting what people do. It’d probably only be a matter of time before he starts another “experiment” with people who work in the theater.

10)  What kinds of cultural work does WLIP do? That is, does is function as a "cautionary tale"? Or, is it more a straight documentary ... Ondi Timoner having found herself in a unique situation that she herself was later uniquely capable of sharing? I feel that this film told a story as well as being true to what documentary is. If we were to read this film through a film critiquing lens, we can see how there is a beginning, middle, and end to this story that Harris is involved in. We can also see it from a documentary perspective; this film tracks details of Harris’ life and how he became self-destructive through his work.

11) What else does the film do? What other public rhetorics does it activate, tap, or alter? How? I feel this film activates, taps into, and alters the public rhetoric of culture. It all goes back to Josh Harris’ prediction on how the Internet would take over our lives to the point where everything we do is publicly documented. Social media is taking over people’s lives already, based on its numbers and data that they collect. Social media is taking over our culture now and will most likely eventually become a traditional way to communicate in the future.