in limbo: how the internet saves our lives

Does sharing whole sections of our lives on the internet transform our identity, our humanity? A vertiginous challenge that is explored in a unique interactive film, enhanced with your own data, by director Antoine Viviani for ARTE. A 30-minute narrative enriched by the data of the Internet user, in limbo offers a personalized experience combining testimonials and immersion in the heart of our digital identity.

"In a few years, the only way to erase your digital footprints will be to change your real identity."
Eric Schmidt, CEO of EGoogle (Wall Street Journal 2010)

Un film at the heart of a sensory journey in our connected memory

An experiment for computer and tablet, in limbo is the first documentary that integrates the personal data of the Internet user within the narrative, articulated around a 30-minute flim, in limbo, allowing to explore the Internet and the digital world from the point of view of the data itself.
Our data accompanies us all our life like our shadows and footprints; when we are all gone, it will haunt the memory of a huge network still in operation, enveloping the whole planet with its waves, its tasks and its activity.

In limbo, twelve personalized sequences integrate the data of the Internet user who has logged on to his or her five Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, gmail and Linkedin accounts. The film doesn't stop, the data is part of the story. Memories, photos, sounds, emails, contacts, locations and images through the webcam are integrated into the film and mirror a disturbing image of oneself.

Thanks to an exceptional work on the graphics, the image is only apprehended through these data. Internet users filmed thanks to a Kinect camera, are digitized and transformed into lines of code, in a constant back and forth between the web and reality.

Drifting in his or her immediate memory, the Internet user gets lost in the limbo of the network and glimpses the dreams and fears of this new connected humanity: what are we building? A new civilization? Or simply a vast cemetery of data?

A director who questions the place of our memory in the age of the internet

French director and producer, Antoine Viviani has directed several documentaries (for Rem, Arcade Fire and music video director Vincent Moon) and worked with video artist Pierre Huyghe. He created his own production company, Providences, with which he made his first films: Little blue nothing (2009), then Fugues, a series of short films on classical music. In 2011, he produces and directed IN SITU in co-production with ARTEa feature-length documentary for internet and cinema about artistic interventions in the public space in Europe, for which he received the Best Interactive Documentary Award at IDFA in 2011 and the Best Film Award at the London Doc Fest in 2012.

Stakeholders

– Gordon Bell He is one of the founders of the Internet and a pioneer of life-logging: the compulsive recording of every moment of our daily life on a digital medium.
– Ray Kurzweil : Director of Engineering at Google and founder of the University of the Singularity, which advocates the total digitization of the human race in 2031.
– Paul Miller an American columnist, he tried to disconnect from the internet for a year.
– George Dyson A science historian who has dedicated his life to the study of creation and the mythology of the digital world.
– Cathal Gurrin He is a computer engineer and claims to be the most digitized person in the world.
– Laurie Frick : American artist, she creates works from her own data, she is one of the pioneers of the Quantified self Individuals who wish to quantify and measure all their actions and habits.
- Liesi Capper : CEO of mycybertwin, an internet archive company that sells virtual beings.
– Brewster Kahle : computer scientist graduated from the prestigious MIT. He is the founder of internet archive.

Broadcast on ARTE Futur until 2018.

Other excerpts :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLmfiCnVD2LL5YsYSVJiXCkfmZtqN-3YWz

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