It’s difficult these days to imagine a world without the WWW. It has managed to change all of our lives in a very brief period of time. Whether for better or worse is an entirely different conversation. The fact of the matter is, love it or loathe it, it’s definitely here to stay.

There was a time however, when people weren’t exactly sure what the point of the internet was. One man leading the way was dot.com guru Josh Harris. Not only did he ‘get’ the internet, he knew exactly where it was going.

This has really gone downhill, even for a Travelodge.

Harris quickly shifted his interest from his market research and analysis firm in 1993, to founding Pseudo.Com – an online broadcasting system if you will, webcasting different programmes to a diverse audience, who could also participate with the shows by way of chat rooms.

In the late nineties he turned an underground car park in New York City into a social experiment. One hundred people signed up to live in this bunker for a month, with cameras monitoring their every movement, including the ones made by their bowels, with cameras literally in the loos. In exchange for their freedom, they were given free food, alcohol and quite bizarrely even for NY, the use of their very own gun range. They were also interrogated regularly, in a pretty hostile fashion.

It was at this time that Harris met with film-maker Ondi Timoner, whom he gave free reign to record what was happening. Since then, Timoner has kept tabs on one of the net’s pioneers, which has led to this documentary.

After this Big Brother style experiment (echoing both Orwell’s book and the TV series that was just finding its feet in Europe at roughly the same time), Harris installed cameras everywhere in his New York loft apartment, where both he and his girlfriend at the time, not only lived under the gaze of a growing voyeuristic online community, but also interacted with them on a daily basis, via chat rooms, for six months.

This not only took its toll on their relationship, it lead to Harris having a mental breakdown. It didn’t help either that when the dot.com bubble burst, so did Harris’ world, including his personal fortune of millions.

Timoner’s documentary, which won the Grand Jury Prize in the Documentary category at Sundance this year, reveals one of the lesser-known visionaries of the early dot.com years. Unfortunately for Timoner, nothing about Harris comes across as likeable. But this isn’t news for her, particularly when she opens her film with footage of Harris deciding to leave his dying mother a recorded message on video, instead of seeing her in person.

What she does present is a man who could only really be described and defined as one of the original geeks, who desperately wanted to be accepted as an artist. This manifested itself through his alter ego Luvvy – a somewhat depressing-looking clown, who could easily make adults cry, never mind children.

The real dilemma of this documentary though, is accepting the fact that Josh Harris had the uncanny ability to predict the future path of the internet; this comes at the expense of knowing that he’s also a complete tool. If only he had come across as the underground underdog hero, his achievements would have been ten times more acceptable.

As it stands, the film serves as a curious reminder of how far the internet has come in such a remarkably short period of time. There’s also an underpinning message of that we should all be careful what we wish for. It’s not just a question of Big Brother watching you, but the entire online community as well.

But as far as Harris is concerned, love him or loathe him (you’ll loathe him, no doubt), this is an intriguing look at his truly fascinating, if slightly sad and depressing life.