Last nights screening "We Live in Public - Ondi Timoner" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrTgFphhNeo&has_verified=1 The film is all about Josh Harris, Founder of Jupiter Research, a team of programmers he headed in his promotion of online interactive projects which, in hind sight, were way ahead of the time. He is also part of what was once termed as .com millionaires and amassed a considerable amount of wealth in the early 90's and ploughed his money back into his lavish on line experimental projects and lifestyle. He is responsible for pseudo.com, which he later sold and "we live in public" - a huge Big Brother style project, inspired by the Trueman show, in which a virtual world was created with cameras all around 24 hours a day for the public to access, this was hosted in December 1999 and was wrapped up soon after the millenium after reports to the police that the operation was a cult. Following on from this, he embarked on his own personal project in which the cameras were turned on to himself and his girlfriend in their apartment. Similar to "we live in public" members of the public were able to log on at anytime and to also post comments and to see their every movement. This project became the un doing of their relationship and he later claimed that she was just someone he hooked up with for the project, however, it was clear to see he was very much in love and perhaps its a pride thing to say otherwise, especially as his girlfriend was the only person he had allowed himself to open up and become close to.
Josh's relationship had broken down with his Mum who was emotionally neglectful of her family and Josh's response to this, from being a child, was to lose himself in TV. He was particularly into the programme "Gilligans Island" he imagined that the characters on this were his own family and the mother in it was the Mother he desired and indeed, Josh goes on to create an alter ego where he dresses in character known as Mr Lovley, inspired by the Mother in this programme. He admitted that due to being lost in TV and having no emotional connection with his parents - he struggled to feel and show emotion, the virtual world of TV had become his family. My view is that a lot of the projects that Josh embarked on was all about him putting himself of subjects in the spotlight and perhaps this is derived from his lack of emotional connection with his parents. He also provoked the volunteers in the public experiment so I wonder was he trying to illicit a response from them that mirrored his own inner torment?
Josh lost his millions in the stock slump of the early 90's, he had a breakdown around this time and did turn to his family. He found his Mum was unsupportive of him at this time and again he felt rejected and never saw her again, when she was on her death bed, she asked to see him. Josh, however, felt he could not do so as by this time he readily admitted the only way he can communicate his feelings are in front of the camera and not in person. He filmed a final greeting to him Mum and posted her a video.
Having lost his wealth Josh now lives in Ethiopia where he states they are poor nation in monetary terms but rich in other ways, he is actively engaged with projects with the local community. It is believed, however, that Josh will be back as he has done this before, had a breakdown, taken a lot of time out for reflection and then has launched a new project. I admire that he is a risk taker and fully believes in what he is doing and is very confident in the promotion of his work and of getting people on board. He has suffered big set backs but has come back after a period of reflection. We think we need to be busy all the time, unless thats just me, whereas periods of time out and of not thinking for a time is perhaps not a bad thing at all and gives a whole new fresh perspective. The film also gives food for thought on just how adsorbed we have become in online communities such as myspace and facebook and where this is heading.
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