We Live In Public: Cyberspace and Alternative Realities in Documentaries

As we celebrate the Internet's 40th anniversary, let's enjoy some documentaries that reveal the ways in which cyberspace and the alternative reality it represents have altered our real lifestyles, social behavior and expectations.

• We Live In Public (2009) focuses on the exploits of Josh Harris, the dot.com multimilionaire and visionary oft referred to as the 'Andy Warhol of the Internet.' During the 1990s, Harris's Internet empire was headquartered at Pseudo, his online network that streamed personal performance art 24/7 and created a community of Internet celebrities who lived in pubic in cyberpace. Many Pseudo stars participated in Harris' infamous 'Quiet' project, a month-long live in millennium celebration that's chronicled in We Live in Public.

  Within Pseudo's alternative reality, social inhibitions were overcome and/or undermined, or were at least challenged. As precursor to reality TV and YouTube, the cyber network engendered instant fame and a subset of popular culture and social behavior that have come to permeate contemporary lifestyle.

  We Live In Public opens theatrically on August 28. Watch the trailer.

• Second Skin (2008) investigates the real life social interactions of admittedly obsessed players of massively-multiplayer online games and follows them, via their chosen and self-designed avatars, into their alternative life in cyberspace. Focusing on clans formed around the World of Warcraft game, the film follows specific players who meet in cyberspace and become fast friends in real life. They move across country to become roommates and, in some instances, marry each other.

  Other players reveal how their addition to the game has cost them their jobs and familial relationships. Experts comment on the psychology of gaming and its effect on the lives of gamers.

  Second Skin is fascinating in its creative use of real and virtual cinematic elements and, because it presents a well-balanced view of the gaming phenomenon, it is of widespread interest to anyone who's keeping track of the rapid changes in contemporary social interactions resulting from the ever increasing importance of the Internet in our lives.

  You can find Second Skin on DVD. And, watch the trailer

• Molotov Alva And His Search For The Creator: A Second Life Odyssey (2008) is the first (and, to my knowledge, only) documentary that takes place entirely in cyberspace. In it, filmmaker Douglas Gayeton (who directed Johnny Mnemonic, 1995), sends an avatar armed with a camera into Second Life, the online virtual community, in order to document the challenges he encounters and his moments of self realization during his ongoing search for the creator. The film is done entirely in animation with first person voice over narration. Does Molotov Alva seed the next iteration of cyberspace social interaction? Does the film, for some cyberspace fans, herald the new reality -- which, of course, is pure fiction? Maybe you can ask Molotov Alva, if you can find him in Second Life.

  You can start your search at HBO or by watching the trailer

These films and the questions they pose are certainly timely and worthy of serious -- and seriously entertaining -- contemplation during the 40th anniversary of the invention of the Internet. What are your thoughts on the matter? What films do you know of -- documentaries and narrative features -- that deal with the intersection of real space and cyberspace?

(PHOTOS: 'We Live In Public.' Courtesy of Interloper Films; 'Second Skin.' Courtesy of Pure West Films; 'Molotov Alva.' Courtesy of HBO).