PUBLIC MARKS with tags donottrack & upian

In POV #97, Sergeo Kirby asked a series of needed questions about the landscape of interactive documentary. (Read Kirby’s article here.) Unfortunately, it felt like many of the answers he provided were reached before he started writing the article. Sergeo is a friend whose innovations have contributed some great things to Canadian doc culture, but that article can’t skate by without a rebuttal.

Alors qu'elles peinent à se renouveler à l'antenne, les chaînes publiques sont à la pointe des nouvelles formes d'écriture sur Internet. En produisant, notamment, des documentaires multimédia ambitieux.

How do you make mass surveillance relevant to the average person? Well, you could make the issue all about dick pics, like John Oliver did last week. Do Not Track, a new documentary web series premiering online today, is taking a less carnal approach: the site scoops up your data and uses it to give every episode a terrifyingly personal touch.

“I know right now that this is the country you live in,” says a seemingly omnipotent narrator as an image of the Queen flashes up on my screen. “I know that it is a nice morning. I know that you’re on a Mac.”