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We Live in Public, an excerpt

Different from earlier installments of 90-Second Cinema, this segment brings us to the complicated conception of “audience” as it might be defined going into 2010. Any filmmaker worth her salt knows that being aware of your “audience” is part of the art of the doc.

Here is a scene from WE LIVE IN PUBLIC in which Josh Harris, the film’s protagonist, is living with his girlfriend Tanya under 24-hour electronic surveillance online. Ondi Timoner’s film illuminates some of the early and prescient moments in Internet history when audiences started to become performers and vice-versa. By Ondi’s use of surveillance footage, shot footage, interviews and voice over AND our own personal understandings of how the internet is evolving and how we participate in it, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC masterly provokes us to question our relation to media and the internet.

Are we now the documenters, performers and audiences simultaneously? We at Arts Engine have been discussing this film for weeks and would be curious to know your thoughts. If you have not seen it yet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC is currently screening nationwide and will be available on DVD on March 1, 2010.

~ Phil Lane

Powered by Cinereach. Cinereach was created in 2006 by young filmmakers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs to champion vital stories artfully told. Cinereach facilitates the creation of films that challenge, excite, innovate, offer new perspectives and inspire action through three key initiatives: Grants & Awards, The Reach Film Fellowship and Productions.

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about 90SC

Each month MediaRights.org will select a video clip from a social-issue piece of media and present it to its visitors to watch, comment-on and forward to their peers. Clips will be no longer than ninety seconds. As social-issue media increases on television, in theaters and on-line, we want to highlight the art of this important content. Stay tuned each month to see which film and what scene we are highlighting!