What Will We Be Project

The WHAT WILL WE BE (working title) project is a coming-of-age tale of unforeseen dimensions: the collaborative interactive story of the first digital generation, as it (attempts to) enter the world of work. The result of a curious collaboration between a Canadian social documentary filmmaker, a German economist and a British web programmer and designer, the project begins with questions. An online questionnaire, answered by tens of thousands of 20 to 35 year-olds from Europe and North America (and beyond), will then grow into interactive, flash-animated statistics, initiating a much needed discussion about the direction and challenges of our communal future. These statistics will be brought to life with an online array of in-depth portraits of 20-35 year-olds and interviews with academic experts, artfully embedded within the flash-animated statistics. Each video-clip will literally constitute one point in a greater picture, one which will help today's young adults situate themselves within the geography of issues, and pinpoint the individual and institutional sources of this generation's great struggle for work, meaning, and fulfilment. The whatwillwebe web documentary/platform will actively harness the phenomenal dimensions of today's social-networking technologies, emerging first and foremost as a dialogue, both face-to-face and online. From this dialogue will emerge statistics, debate, and great stories: the (self) portrait of our generation.