Life in the Fishbowl, A Contribution to One Day On Earth
I first heard about the One Day On Earth project several months ago and resolved to find some way to participate. To summarize the idea behind the project, it is best to take the tagline from their website: “On October 10, 2010 (10.10.10), across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period and contribute their voice to the largest participatory media event in history.”
I did have one problem with the project: October 10th is a Sunday. In most of the world, especially the developed world, Sundays are a day of rest, a day counter to ordinary routine. I thought, since most of the world works Monday through Friday from roughly 9 to 5, can one actually accurately depict the human experience on a Sunday?
Regardless, I basically forgot about One Day On Earth until I attended the Vimeo Festival last weekend, where I happened to attend a short panel promoting participation in the project. At first, I was dismayed; I had less than one day to prepare, not to mention I was scheduled to work on Sunday. I quickly thought there was no way I could still participate — until I realized that I actually had the perfect opportunity. I could actually capture myself at work, thereby helping to craft a more accurate depiction of what the human experience in the 21st Century is truly like.
So, when I showed up for my 12–6pm shift at the ER the next day, I set up my laptop with my webcam, which has a mode where it can record continuously for hours on end. I then minimized the window and did not look at it again until it finished recording ten minutes before the end of my shift. So, for me personally, it was an exercise in brutal honesty; the webcam would capture anything I did, every time I might pick my nose or make an ugly expression or that my hair might fall in an unflattering way. It was a strange and humbling experience.
I had no idea what the results would be like. They could be interesting, funny, sad, boring… I really did not know what to expect. I did, however, realize that no one would actually want to watch me for almost 6 hours. So, as soon as I received the finished footage, I added a timestamp and then re-rendered it at 500x speed.
Even sped up, what I found most remarkable was how boring this made my life seem. Since you don’t see what I’m doing on my laptop or watching on the computer next to me, all I appear to do is drink coffee, type, sit there, occasionally get up to check in/out some equipment, eat Cup Noodles, practice Chinese pronunciations, drink hot chocolate, and sit there some more. In reality, I was also working on a project for Game Design, writing e-mails to friends, talking to my dad on IM, and watching Battlestar Galactica Classic on the other monitor, but you can’t see that.
It was then that I realized that I had also stumbled on something unexpectedly profound: without context of what we’re actually doing on our computers, from an outside perspective, life in the 21st Century has got to be among the most boring in the entire history of human civilization. If you were to actually look at the screens, we might be doing something remarkable and life-changing, such as formulating the cure for cancer, but without that context, we look really, incredibly dull.
I have no idea if the people from One Day On Earth are going to want to include my video in their final compilation, because from their website it seems like they were looking for something more artistic and romanticized. But I do hope it makes an appearance, because I think it captures reality for most adults in the developed world; this is what most of us look like on an average day at work.