Filmmaker to shoot with camera in prosthetic eye

Published 11 March, 2009, 15:07

Canadian film-maker Rob Spence intends to shoot a documentary with a tiny camera concealed inside a prosthetic eye, AP reports.

Spence hopes to attract attention to the global spread of surveillance cameras with the project

The film maker damaged his eye in childhood and had it removed three years ago, when he also ordered an artificial eye with a camera. The prosthetic organ will be fitted into his eye-socket next month.

The camera will be recording the same things as the man sees with his other, functioning eye. Spence said he will become a “human surveillance machine” in order to find an answer to the human question of whether or not people are “sleepwalking into an Orwellian society”.

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Although Spence’s subjects won’t know they are being filmed at the time, he will have to get their permission to use footage of them in the film.

The camera – provided by Santa Clara, California-based company that specializes in the miniature cameras – will be supplemented with a battery and a wireless transmitter.


Rob Spence

The major challenge is to get the equipment fitted into the prosthetic eye. This task has been assigned to top engineers, including Steve Mann, from a research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Success with the eye camera will accelerate research into using the technology to restore vision to blind people,” AP quotes technical product manager Zafer Zamboglu as saying. “We believe there's a good future for the prosthetic eye,” he said.

At a media conference in Brussels, Spence – who jokingly calls himself ‘eyeborg’ told reporters the tiny camera will allow him to record more natural conversations than he would with a bulky regular one. He admitted, though, that privacy concerns do exist.

“The closer I get to putting this camera eye in, the more freaked out people are about me,” he said, adding “people aren't sure they want to hang around someone who might be filming them at any time.”


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