Because We Are Virtual

The Internet mixes the private and public spheres, so that the virtual becomes nothing but an infinite extension of reality. The computer screen tends to be an open window onto intimacy. Because We Are Visual collects the videos from diary blogs where people confess in front of their web cameras, the same way they would in front of a priest. The anonymity of the audience stands for its universality. The confessor demands absolution from this abyss of individuals, hoping that some majority will validate his or her opinion.

The Green Wave deals with the same ’sacredness’. A movement struggling for democracy in Iran, after the illegitimate re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, uses the social network looking for a godly answer to its prayers. Calls for demonstrations or cries for help from the European authorities are made through Twitter. The Internet represents the infinite possibilities of reality; it is a manifestation of hope.

Hope is a power, and the Web is a revolutionary one. This revolution can first of all be understood on a political level. The Internet is the place of resistance in The Green Wave, because it enables actions beyond the laws set by governments. It is the perfect place to develop the idea of democracy in its widest sense. Every voice is to be heard, the worst as much as the best. Actions denied in reality are possible in the virtual. Furthermore, the virtual can have an effect on reality. Even though the importance of Twitter for the resistance has been questioned by certain media, it definitely helped spread word of the terrible Iranian situation over the globe, when other ways of communications were censored.

The revolution can also be considered on a personal level in Because We Are Visual. Why do bloggers expose themselves to the streams of unpredictable consciousnesses? Abandoning their image to the masses is another way of affirming it. The virtual increases its reality by creating a testimony of its existence. Such a power does not come without risks. The possibilities of the best are balanced out by the possibilities of the worst.

What is perhaps most frightening about the power of the Internet is its ability to dispense contradictory truths. The limbs of reality create new myths and fictions. The Green Wave is structured around an Iranian blog of young protesters’ testimonies, which exemplifies how personal stories can become historical myths. When they speak about the poisonous climate in the country, this affects the image of the movie itself. Drawings are used to recreate the darkest atmospheres, directly addressing the senses. They illustrate events that took place in prisons, where it was of course impossible to film. This fiction is always conceived as complementary to the archive footage. In Because We Are Visual, video bloggers are imprinted in their own environment and so create the decor for their acting. Fiction and the Internet are both about connections and constructions of meanings. So, the Internet is the possibility of fiction itself; it is the basis for any story to be told. It is a material that is waiting to be crafted. The Net is a reservoir of documents that are related in so many ways it can be compared to reality itself.

The point is not to define whether the Internet is right or wrong, because it sits outside of the bounds of morality. The Web is indeed a power, used in documentaries as energy for the narration of what is most human inside us. In various ways, the Internet and reality are two sides of a same coin, the human being, and that is what all documentaries are about.

By Viviane Saglier