Cyberstage Magazine

Webhead

Webhead directed by Thor Henrikson is an amusing documentary which acts as a guide on a tour of the community known as the World Wide Web- www, Cyberspace, the Internet etc. The guide is Don McKellar, one of Canada's most potent, charismatic actors. He is a weird and wonderful guy called Webhead who is captivated by the www and obsessed with his own Home Page which he displays. He is quite a spectacle as he explains the fundamentals you need to know about what waits for you on-line. He then tackles some of the issues of this new frontier Privacy, Access, the Have and Have Nots, Censorship etc.

The film used low technology not all these things moving around with special effects but just quick time movies. It isn't about technology but about people using it and the direction the technology is headed- where society and technology intercept. It reaches an audience that doesn't necessarily even own a computer. The technology is brought down to almost everyday objects things that everyone can relate to i.e.: a toaster, a blender. The key scene explains the low level guts of how the internet works but uses these everyday analogies that people can understand. Webhead creates a network by wiring all his household appliances together, using the appliances and pieces of toast he shows how things move around on the network. These real terms take the explanation out of the realm of technology. Staying away from, even though it is talking about technology. Once they get an understanding about how things move around and how difficult it is to block things then all the other issues make sense.

The film takes an optimistic view that with the internet everyone will be able to be a content provider, although the producer doesn't necessarily believe that, he decided to lock the film into that view point because 10 years from now when looking at the film he wants people to remember how optimistic everyone was. Think of the early days of t.v. or radio where the belief was that it was going to be a great democratizer. Surfing the net. writing and designing web pages are in some ways a step above TV because you follow your interests but really in the end you are just a " terminal potato" Nonetheless, everyone will have to be a little bit of an artist- in the domain of what an "artist" used to be. This will be a key question in the future about keeping the Status Quo. Paul Hoffert says in the film " It means that if I have a hobby of recording church choirs and I do three or four a year I can be a record company just like one of the big record companies when I put my material on the network." This quote was taken from the film's web page www.mackerel.com/webhead which will be used as a forum for discussion and debate. Webhead will be on CBC newsworld in June /96 and it will be broadcast on the MBONE in late April. Kind of ironic, I can't imagine an audience that less needs to see this film!

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