Canadian Rob Spence Replaced Missing Eye with Video Camera
When Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence was a teenager, he lost his right eye in a shooting accident on his grandfather’s farm. He is now determined to replace his artificial eye with a video camera.
Spence, 36, built a miniature camera some years ago that could be fitting inside his false eye. Last year a prototype was complete and listed as one of the best inventions of 2009 by Time magazine.
The bionic eye contains a 1.5mm-square, low resolution camera, a very small round printed circuit board, a video transmitter, and a 3-volt rechargeable Varta microbattery. Its components are contained in a resealable clear acrylic used in false eyes but it has two holes for the wires to recharge the battery. It can also be recharged on a computer using USB.
Contrary to fiction movies, as much as he’d like, it is not connected to his brain nor has restored his vision. But the camera does record everything he sees. It also contains a transmitter that allows him to transmit what he is seeing in real time to a computer.
His current eyeborg prototype is quite weak and the images are jerky, the transmitter is also very weak and Spence has to hold a receiving antenna to his check in order to get a clear signal. He is now experimenting with a new prototype that has a stronger transmitter, other frequencies and a booster on the receiver.
The Eyeborg Guy
Spence said:
“Unlike you humans, I can continue to upgrade,”
“Yes, I’m a cyborg. But I think that any technology — even clothing — makes people cyborgs. In today’s world, you have Facebook and camera eyes. Tomorrow, we’ll have collective consciousness and the Borg. It’s a collective robot consciousness. I believe that’s a genuine modern concern.”
As a film-maker, to his advantage Spence uses the camera to record “truer” conversations that would be possible with a handheld camera. He claims,
“When you bring a camera, people change… I wouldn’t be disarming at all. I would just be some dude. It’s a much truer conversation.”
He would only tell his subjects that they were being filmed after the conversation was over, then giving them the option to sign or not to sign a release form permitting him to use the footage.
Rob Spence isn’t the only one-eyed creative person to replace his eye with a camera. In November, 2009 Tanya Vlach, a San Francisco artist caused a mini uproar when she posted on her website a “call for engineers” asking for advice on a bionic eye.
by Mila Braz
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