“When in the course of human events, it becomes increasingly necessary to recognize the fundamental qualities that connect us, [t]hen we must reevaluate the truths we hold to be self-evident.”
Thus begins A Declaration of Interdependence, a new proclamation that puts a modern, social media spin on the United States’ founding document. The video counterpart was posted to YouTube on Monday afternoon as part of a live-streamed event at 3LD Art and Technology Center near Ground Zero.
The four-minute clip is essentially a promotional vehicle for Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death, & Technology, a new documentary by acclaimed director and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain that examines how mobile platforms have forever changed the ways – and the places where – people share and communicate.
Yet, the heartfelt, short flick offers case-in-point closure to the documentary’s narrative, illustrating what Shlain calls “Interdependence in action.”
A Declaration of Interdependence was crowdsourced from an open call for submissions, posted and tweeted online on July 4. Entries were received in 23 languages and from 16 countries, which were then edited down by animator Stefan Nadelman. Moby composed the soundtrack.
The video was posted in correlation with Interdependence Day, an annual international celebration, established by the Interdependence Movement in 2003. That organization’s own Declaration of Interdependence reads a little differently. For Shlain, the medium’s clearly the message.
“[T]he recent addition of the Internet has added a new layer, which connects us in a fresh way, giving the world a new type of central nervous system,” Shlain wrote recently. Something happens in one place, and we can see it, feel it, and do something about it almost instantaneously.”
A Declaration of Interdependence is the first installment in Let It Ripple: Mobile Films for Global Change, a six-part video series intended to extend the reach of Connected, which opens in San Francisco on Friday, Sept. 16.