Meet The Eyeborg: This Filmmaker Has A Camera Inside His Eye

Technology is taking over our lives more and more.

Most of us have multiple devices which we use several hours a day.
But when technology actually becomes a part of your body - does this go too far? or is this simply the future?

Meet Rob Spence - the "Eyeborg".

At the age of 9, Rob went blind on his right eye due to an unfortunate accident.
During his adult years the eye started to physically deteriorate, so his eye ball had to be replaced with a glass eye.

Rob is a filmmaker and years later he thought to himself: Why not put a camera inside my eye?

Since there was an artificial glass eye anyway (with which he couldn't see), he thought he might as well try to implement a tiny camera in it.

There was nothing like this on the market so Rob contacted Kosta Grammatis, an independent radio-frequency engineer and designer who assisted him in designing a camera for the eye.
The equipment includes a small battery, a micro transmitter, a magnetic switch to turn the whole device on and off, and of course the miniature camera.
Later on, the electrical engineer Martin Ling helped him to add a tiny circuit board to the construction, which makes it possible to take the data from the camera and send it anywhere else through a receiver.

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Maybe you can't call Rob a real cyborg because the camera doesn't have a connection to his brain or his optic nerve (so he can't actually see with it), but still, he is probably one of the closest examples to a technologically enhanced human that are currently alive.

He doesn't record everything he sees - the camera can record 30 minutes of footage before the battery runs out. But that's still enough to record impressive clips from a very interesting perspective.

There have been many privacy concerns with people recording video without a camera - for example with google- or snapchat glasses.

But this is something that actually is quite defensive about - and argues that it's also his right to replace his own eye.
"There is a competing tension between my right to replace my eye that I lost versus others' rights to privacy," he says. "Am I not allowed to put an eye camera in my own body?"
But actually, the camera in his eye makes it very clear if he's recording or not: whenever he is actively using it, the camera (and therefore his whole right eye) glows in bright red.

"Literally everybody [said] it as a joke — people doing the surgery say, 'Oh, you should get an eye camera.' The idea is so out-there in pop culture and science fiction. The two reactions are, 'Wow, that's so cool' — and, after a few moments' reflection, 'but that's so creepy'. "

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So how is Rob using his eye camera now?

As a filmmaker, he says that his eye camera gives him the ability to record intimate interviews, without having to work with bulky cameras that can be quite intimidating.

Right now, he is even using his unique ability to film a documentary.

The game developer Square Enix actually got in touch with him to film video in preparation for the release of the video game sequel Deus Ex: Human Evolution.
He has filmed a documentary where he himself interviews other recipients of high-tech augmentation.

The video also includes some footage from his eye camera!

What do you think about "The Eyeborg" and his eye camera - useful, futuristic, awesome or creepy?

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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