December 6, 2008
He wants to be the camera: Canadian filmmaker also looking for a camera implant
Eye-Eye-EYE! Only a couple of weeks ago, SFAM blogged about a San Francisco artist looking for a webcam implant for her artificial eye. Now a canucklehead [sic] is looking to follow suit.
Toronto-based producer/director Rob “Eyeborg” Spence lost his eye due to a gun accident and only had it replaced with a prosthetic three years ago. Now he wants to augment it with a wireless camera, not to restore his vision, but to become a literal camerahead, with the ability to record and store images of what he sees:
I am not restoring vision, I’m just modifying my prosthetic eye into a video camera with the same capabilities as a modern cell phone. I can stream the footage, save it to a hard-drive, or put it in my documentary film called Eye 4 an Eye.
Equiped for the job. In Rob’s case, such use for his camera-eye is obvious. As a professional filmmaker, he must have spent countless hours setting up shots, finding the right angles, and adjusting lighting whenever possible just to ‘get it right.’ With a built-in camera, all he needs to do is look and… ACTION! Stephen Speilberg probably would give up his own eyes to do what Rob is planning. I bet there are many photo-journalists who wish they could have such cameras when news breaks around them, and not waste time setting up cameras and cables when things go down in a split second.
The beginning of the Trend? Rob and Tina ought to get together and discuss their plans for their eye-cameras, maybe share notes and record their shared experiences. But could these two be just the beginning of the trend of voluntarily having such camcorders implanted into their eye sockets?
No doubt, there are going to be those who have lost an eye who would want such implants, including those who would want them connected to their brains. Then you may have those photo-journalists and movie-maker types who would willingly sacrifice a good eye for such a setup. Not to mention the possible security-surveillance applications…
When normal people with both eyes still working want to have one removed for an implant, that’s when we can say things have gotten out of hand. But it’s still better than what emos have been “implanting” themselves with…
Comments
December 6, 2008
KBlack said:
For a moment there I thought it was gonna be Kovacs
Emtu said:
Although having a camera recording everything you see might be kinda cool I don’t think it would work well for film making. A camera small enough to fit in an eye is never going to deliver the same quality as a professional video camera, not to mention one would never have the same kind of control they would have with a traditional camera. With all this camera in eyes stuff it’s really starting to sound like the movie “The Final Cut” may soon be a reality.
Utopiah said:
“When normal people with both eyes still working want to have one removed for an implant, that’s when we can say things have gotten out of hand.”
Maybe stillness is what is “out of hand” in a constantly evolving environment.
December 7, 2008
chase` said:
It will be interesting when people remove arms and legs for better performance.
Although, I dont really see how thats letting things get out of hand. People put poisonous bags and pieces of plastic in their body to look sexier… Why not implant a part that actually makes you better?
Ghostface said:
I dont think people will go the path of replacing limbs. Maybe some people might replace their eyes or get sturdier organs, but thats as far is it might go. More likely they would get a full body transplant, or just inject nanites in their body -neither of which exactly requires taking a chainsaw to your limbs:p.
As for botox and all. Those are primitive technologies. When scientists can use your stem cells to give you *actual* youthful skin or cosmetic enhancement, then things get interesting. I imagine that technology will be huge in the future.
Mr No 1 said:
“due to a gun accident”… Can you get anything else with one of those?
Anyway, I also do not think things would get out of hand if people decided to get rid of their “meat” eyes in order to purcharse those brand new panasony xm300 with super digital zoom and 3 different vision spectrum to choose from…
And, well, same goes for limbs. Even if you can get yourself enhanced with nanobots or a more “natural” way, I bet my cybersexual appendix that plenty of people out there prefer the looks of chrome…
It’d be interesting to see how humanity evolves into different subtypes depending of our choice.
As per the emos… “Some troubled teens are embedding nails, paper clips, bits of rock, glass and even crayons in their bodies as a way to cope with disturbing thoughts and feelings” … I’d say that’s actually what creates the disturbing feeling in the first place…….
January 19, 2009
Cris Tyschen said:
This piece of information is pretty cool. If any of you guys here are familiar with the cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell you may be thinking what I’m thinking: INTERCEPTORS! Yup, the surveillance device used during the 1st season of Stand Alone Complex. The device was implanted (without the consent) on the police officers investigating the laughing man case. Call it high tech and real time surveillance.
Maybe in a few years time could we see full body prosthetics?
March 4, 2009
utopiah said:
Bionic eye gives blind man sight
Page last updated at 01:26 GMT, Wednesday, 4 March 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7919645.stm