Professor Surgically Implanting Camera In The Back Of His Head

When Waffa Bilal turns around for the next year, a camera surgically embedded in the back of his head will stare back at you.

The camera, which will be stuck to the NYU photo professor’s head via a “piercing-like attachment” when he goes through surgery in the next couple of weeks according to the Wall Street Journal, will take photos every 60 seconds and beam them to monitors at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar.

The artwork’s called “The 3rd I” and it’ll be ongoing for an entire year. While it’s mostly intended as a comment on memory and experience – something that’s changed immensely with the advent of digital storage and the possibilites of limitless memory – interestingly, it’s mostly sparking a debate about privacy: When Bilal’s on campus at NYU, where he’ll be actively teaching, he’s going to keep the camera covered with a lens cap. The thing is, it’s not so far from the realm of possibility that we’ll all be recording nearly every moment of our lives in the not-too-distant future – Microsoft’s already got a camera that tries to.

I wonder how it’s going to be to fall asleep with that thing sticking out of his skull. [WSJ via Gothamist, Photo: Associated Press]