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What traces do you leave online? Experience “In Limbo” and find out

What traces do you leave online? Experience “In Limbo” and find out

What traces do you leave online? Experience “In Limbo” and find out

What personal traces do we leave on the Internet? And just how permanent and public are they? These are the questions addressed by the new interactive film In Limbo, directed by Antoine Viviani and co-produced by the NFB, Providences, and Arte. Want to know more?

You can watch In Limbo online now

This unique transmedia project takes a documentary about internet privacy, digital identity, and online communications and adds a personal touch. By entering your own data into the project’s interface, your digital self will be peppered throughout the film. This riveting doc profiles eight people, including computer pioneer Gordon Bell and Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, who share their thoughts and experiences on the new social phenomena of digital culture.

Speakers in the film are captured by a Kinect camera, and they see themselves being digitized and converted into lines of code, in a constant interplay between the Web and reality.

In Limbo (still)
Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, author, computer scientist, inventor, and futurist speaks in In Limbo as his image is transformed into a visualization of data.

With a duration of approximately 30 minutes, including integration of the user’s personal data, In Limbo is a riveting and shareable experience that will call into question the very nature of our identity in digital culture.

In Limbo is part of a broader reflection being conducted by the NFB’s Digital Studio about how the digital world is changing us. Launched last fall, the mobile app Cancer of Time (NFB/France Télévisions) explores our inability to enjoy a bit of downtime from our electronic devices. The upcoming interactive documentary series Do Not Track (NFB/ARTE/BR), slated for release in April 2015, takes this reflection to another level, with particular focus on the commercial aspects of digital life.

Participants in In Limbo include:

Gordon Bell, a researcher emeritus at Microsoft

Ray Kurzweil, a director of engineering at Google

Paul Miller, an American journalist who disconnected from the Internet for a year

George Dyson, a historian of the creation and mythology of the digital universe

Cathal Gurrin, a computer engineer

Laurie Frick, an American artist who turns her personal data into art

Liesl Capper, CEO of MyCyberTwin, an AI company that sells virtual human beings

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive

Check out In Limbo now… you won’t look at the digital world the same way again.

 

Add a new comment
  1. Fascinating. Best use of digital technology I’ve experienced in many years. Personal, impersonal. ephemeral, permanent.

    And remember: Limbo is actually a religious term for the place souls go after death while God decides their final fate. A final cleansing of human imperfection. Not hell, not heaven, but …. limbo.

  2. I do not have a web presence, but it’s fascinating to watch anyway.

    Who was the speaker that spoke of the internet as the hope for a competent receiver of world affairs. That’s a fascinating concept.

    — Nicole Fraser,
  3. Way to freaky to give all that info.

    — joe,
  4. I got as far as your asking asked to read my mail.
    Sorry.
    Even my parents did not ask that.

    — Errol Pritchard,

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