Years before Justin Kan started lifestreaming, web pioneer Josh Harris had weliveinpublic.com. The long defunct experiment in new media featured Harris and his then girlfriend streaming 24/7. Their apartment was a studio facility rigged with hundreds of cameras, motion sensors and microphones so that anyone could log into the website at any time and see what the pair was up to.

The project didn’t end well and from the bit of reading I’ve done, Harris seems to have fallen out of the public limelight (though he is still very much “in the business”) in the last few years but the man was well ahead of the game. He was doing this in 2001 when the web was still a little thing that only the nerds dabbled in. In the years that have followed we’ve seen the rise of Justin.tv, You Tube, Blogging and Twitter. A huge section of our culture lives in the public space of the internet and this is as good reason as any to see Ondi Timoner’s documentary.

We Live in Public tells Harris’ story and in doing so, I assume we’ll also get a look at where things went wrong. I’m more curious to see why things went so badly for him when we’re more connected now than ever before and things haven’t gone completely haywire yet. Have the people changed or is it our perception and interaction with the media and material? Either way, Timoner’s film has been getting rave reviews and after seeing the trailer, I’m more than a little curious to check it out for myself.

The award winning documentary doesn’t currently have a distributor but I’m hopeful that we’ll have a chance to see it either through the festival or art house circuit.

Trailer is tucked under the seat!