HBOVoyeur

By now, we have come to expect intelligent, provocative programming from HBO. HBOVoyeur is the network’s latest project, and it’s almost completely different from anything predating it. To start with, there’s barely any dialogue. The viewer watches the stories unfold through the sides of the characters’ building — think a beehive, cut in half — from enough distance so that he can see but not hear what is going on. The stories interweave, and HBO is betting that we voyeurs will be curious enough to figure out what’s going on.

Though you can watch Voyeur on TV, you can only watch it on OnDemand, the project is designed to be viewed online. Not only does the online version have more content, but you can navigate through it, zooming in to watch one apartment (one story) more closely before zooming out to see the whole building again. But it is really that latter view that captures the essence of voyeurism and the idea of the project. The large view is distracting "” the eye jumps from one apartment to the other "” but while zooming in forces the viewer to miss most of the stories, the large view is incomprehensible as a whole. Life in the city. Visit the HBO site and the The Story Gets Deeper blog for more information. And click here to view the freshly-released “The Watcher” short film, another more intimate view of the project.