Eyeborg: The Man Who Replaced His Eyeball with a Camera

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Rob Spence is a filmmaker who calls himself the “Eyeborg.” After losing sight in his right eye at age 9 by incorrectly shooting a shotgun, Spence decided 26 years later to have his sightless eye removed and replaced with a digital camera.

After sharing his initial eye camera back in 2011, Spence has gotten major upgrades to the design.

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While the early model clearly looked like a mass of electronics in his eye socket, Spence’s new camera looks just like a regular eye prosthesis. But behind the facade is a working camera with a built-in micro radio-frequency transmitter.

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The camera isn’t wired to Spence’s nerves, so it doesn’t do the duties of a real eye, but it does record 3-minutes of video at a time (the time limit is due to overheating). Spence can monitor the eye’s “live view” through a handheld screen, and turning the camera on and off is done by tapping a magnet against it.

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Here’s a view of Spence’s wife and dog in his Toronto apartment. It’s from an episode from Showtime’s new series “Dark Net,” which featured Spence’s eye camera:

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Spence is now working with his development team on getting the camera to record his life for hours at a time. Once that happens — he estimates that it will this year — Spence plans to use the eye for more serious documentary film projects that are shot from his exact point of view.

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You can follow along with Spence’s Eyeborg project through its official website.

(via Eyeborg via New York Post)


Image credits: Photographs courtesy Rob Spence

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