Prof to drill camera into own skull
Al-Qaeda hacker set for third eye
An assitant professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts will embed a digicam into the back of his head as part of a year-long art piece — and some of his fellow faculty aren't too happy about it.
The Iraqi-born American artist Wafaa Bilal has been commissioned by a new museum in Qatar to drill the camera into his head and have it take pictures at one-minute intervals for a year, with the images to be displayed in the museum — Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art — after it opens in Doha on December 30.
Bilal declined to comment on the project, entitled "The 3rd I", to The Wall Street Journal, which reported it on Tuesday,
In classic artspeak, the museum's promo materials describe "The 3rd I" as being "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience."
Some of the NYU faculty, however, describe having an active camera embedded in an active professor's skull as an invasion of students' privacy.
"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," associate chairman of Bilal's photography and imaging department Fred Ritchin told the WSJ.
The department chairwoman Deborah Willis says that when Bilal informed her of his planned headcam, she asked: "What if students are upset? What if you're documenting what they don't want you to see?"
The department is still mulling how to handle the matter. Suggestions include putting a lens cap over Bilal's all-seeing back of the head during teaching hours, or just turning the damn thing off when he's on the NYU campus.
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Al-Qaeda hacker set for third eye
An assitant professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts will embed a digicam into the back of his head as part of a year-long art piece — and some of his fellow faculty aren't too happy about it.
The Iraqi-born American artist Wafaa Bilal has been commissioned by a new museum in Qatar to drill the camera into his head and have it take pictures at one-minute intervals for a year, with the images to be displayed in the museum — Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art — after it opens in Doha on December 30.
Bilal declined to comment on the project, entitled "The 3rd I", to The Wall Street Journal, which reported it on Tuesday,
In classic artspeak, the museum's promo materials describe "The 3rd I" as being "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience."
Some of the NYU faculty, however, describe having an active camera embedded in an active professor's skull as an invasion of students' privacy.
"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," associate chairman of Bilal's photography and imaging department Fred Ritchin told the WSJ.
The department chairwoman Deborah Willis says that when Bilal informed her of his planned headcam, she asked: "What if students are upset? What if you're documenting what they don't want you to see?"
The department is still mulling how to handle the matter. Suggestions include putting a lens cap over Bilal's all-seeing back of the head during teaching hours, or just turning the damn thing off when he's on the NYU campus.
READ MORE
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