Group 1 =16-Oct
Josh Harris Internet pioneer called Josh: I'm in NY, its 1984. I have a low budget, He attended a lecture about networks and connectivity, he aligned that with the future and started a company called Jupiter communication - which he modelled on his prediction of what the internet would evolve into. In the beginning Jupiter Communication collected data and sold it to others - making Josh quickly a millionaire. With other young other young internet entrepreneurs, he formed a NY based community which was then called. com kids - a site of new online-based innovation. He created an online channel called Pseudo - which was made up of multiple elements and expressions of popular culture.
"The future is the internet"
Pseudo was the first internet TV channel and it fed back into his own networks and reaffirmed his own social circle - where he would head-hunt young creative people to work for him. He selected Artists, filmmakers and it was comparable to Andy Warhol's warehouse parties… where Josh's hand was synonymous with that of Warhol's, where Josh's was a self proclaimed the business of programming peoples life." Josh's childhood and upbringing was lonely and difficult- his parents were absent, he was emotionally neglected, his only constant consolation being found in Television. He watched Gilligan's island every day unendingly. Later in life, the reference to Gilligan's Island returns in his alter ego Luvvie. Those around describe the alter ego as frightening and shocking. Josh would go to work as Luvvie, and behaviour in strange and unpredictable ways which result his dismissal from Jupiter communication. Despite his expulsion, Josh's interest in investigating the future power of the Internet remained. He invested 2m in the establishment of a pod hotel cum surveillance project. Through a stringent application and screening process a selection of individuals were admitted and locked in, mostly artist and cultural producers. Multiple cameras and camera people filmed them eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, crying, shitting, - there was no trace of privacy, and all of the footage was screened on individual television sets that could be watch around the house. "In here, you can do and be whatever you want, but the footage belongs to us.”
“Andy Wharhol said that people will have 15 minute of fame in there lives. We believe that people will have 15 minute of fame everyday”.
Harris also had an interested in mind control and manipulation and set up a investigation room in the hotel where he staged interrogations with the participants. He exposed them to questions concerning their personal problems like depression, suicide attempt, drug addiction ect. He more or less wanted to break them down and this resulted in a change of energy in the house with situations and relations with the hotel became more and more chaotic. The first 1 January 2000 the police of NY entered the hotel and shut it down because of rumors that the project had turned in to a cult. Here the film describes that Harris by then was really tired of his project and wanted to move on.