Grizzly Man is a kickass documentary. It followed a dude into the wild who had the idea of living amongst the grizzlies. I won’t give the story away, but it didn’t go as planned. Much like this interview.

The director of that doccie – and many others – Werner Herzog, was interviewed recently on his latest release, Lo and Behold, an Internet documentary focusing on social networks.

But Werner doesn’t have a cellphone, nor does he know what Pokemon Go is, even though his film “examines the myriad ways our nature as humans has adapted to, and sometimes violently resisted, the constraints and freedoms of online life.”

According to the Verge:

Told in short, episodic acts, the film’s subjects range from a family that was targeted by unimaginable harassment after the death of their daughter, to an internet addiction rehab facility, to the UCLA basement where the very first message was sent over a network.

Going into the interview, Emily Yoshida had her questions written down, ready to find out about the man, his documentary and how his online MasterClass film lectures are going.

But she soon learned to throw caution to the wind and just talk – and that’s how the two got onto the topic of Pokemon Go.

Do you know about Pokémon Go?

No.

It’s this…

I don’t know what Pokémon Go is and what all these things are…

It’s a…

You’re talking to somebody who made his first phone call at age 17. You’re talking to someone who doesn’t have a cell phone, for example, for cultural reasons.

Right.

Tell me about Pokémon Go. What is happening on Pokémon Go?

It’s basically the first mainstream augmented reality program. It’s a game where the entire world is mapped and you walk around with the GPS on your phone. You walk around in the real world and can catch these little monsters and collect them. And everybody is playing it.

Does it tell you you’re here at San Vicente, close to Sunset Boulevard?

Yeah, it’s basically like a Google map.

But what does Pokémon do at this corner here?

You might be able to catch some. It’s all completely virtual. It’s very simple, but it’s also an overlay of physically based information that now exists on top of the real world.

When two persons in search of a pokémon clash at the corner of Sunset and San Vicente is there violence? Is there murder?

They do fight, virtually.

Physically, do they fight?

No—

Do they bite each other’s hands? Do they punch each other?

The people or the…

Yes, there must be real people if it’s a real encounter with someone else.

Well, it’s been interesting because there are all these anecdotes of people who are playing the game, and they’ve never met their neighbors, for instance. And when they go outside to look for pokémon they realize they’re playing the same game, and start talking to each other.

You’d have to give me a cell phone, which I’m not going to use anyway, and I have no clue what’s going on there, but I don’t need to play the game.

No, I think it’s plenty to read about it… in the end, it does seem to be evidence of how easy it is for people to accept AR into their lives, as opposed to VR.

Yeah, but these things are very ephemeral, they come and go.

And that’s that. If you’re more of a Herzog fanboy than a Pokemon Go one, read the whole interview HERE.

[source: theverge]