New York professor installs camera in head

Wafaa Bilal, a New York University professor had a camera surgically implanted into the back of his head, so he can be closer to reality and ideas that are unseen in everyday life. Bilal is a photography professor at the university's Tisch School of the Arts, had the procedure done at a piercing studio for an art project commissioned by a museum in Doha, Qatar. “A project like this is meant to establish a dialogue about surveillance," said Bilal. The project is called "The 3rd I," which is a posterior camera that is used to take snap-shot photographs each minute of Bilal's everyday activities for one year. The thumb-sized camera is mounted on a titanium plate inserted inside the back of his head. A cable runs from the camera to a computer that he carries in a custom-made shoulder bag, providing a real-time global positioning signal of his location. Bilal wants his artwork to examine broader ideas and realities. “I see myself as a mirror reflecting some of the social conditions that we ignore," said Bilal. University authorities have tried to prevent concerns of privacy by requiring a cover over the lens while Bilal is teaching on campus, since the school of arts takes the privacy issues of his project serious.

I think this is a neat idea, but I wonder how that would be comfortable to have a camera on your head and carry a computer in a shoulder bag for a year, that sounds like a lot of work. I want to see the results of this dialogue and understand more where he is coming from with this project. It would be interesting to know what people don’t see behind them in their everyday life.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/02/new.york.camera.head/index.html?npt=NP1