The Wilderness Downtown
Google Chrome (with Arcade Fire)2010
The Wilderness Downtown is a 2010 interactive HTML5 film for Google Chrome, created by Google Creative Lab, with director Chris Milk.
Why it works
A music video that could only exist in a browser. Launched on 30 August 2010, The Wilderness Downtown asked viewers for the address of the home they grew up in, then choreographed a flurry of browser windows around Arcade Fire's 'We Used to Wait', mixing filmed footage with Google Maps and Street View imagery of the viewer's own childhood street, and ended by inviting them to write a note to their younger self. Created by writer-director Chris Milk with the band and Google Creative Lab, it was built to show what HTML5 could do in Chrome. It is studied as the moment personal data became the raw material of an emotional story rather than of targeting, and as a landmark of browser-as-medium craft in which no two viewings were the same. It won a Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2011, and MIT's Docubase also lists a Grand Clio.
Techniques
- Participation Viewers supply the address of the home they grew up in and finish by writing a note to their younger self, so no two viewings match.
- Pathos Mixing Street View imagery of the viewer's own childhood street into the film turns a music video into a personal, nostalgic return home.
- Demonstration Choreographed browser windows, maps and filmed footage show off what HTML5 can do in Chrome, making the browser itself the medium.
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