It is scary to read about the Canadian filmmaker who is putting a Web cam into his eye to record everything. I think there are many houses and buildings which have CCTV devices. I think many people are worried about who’s really watching them.

Back in the early ‘70s, at the Freedom of Information Center we were appalled at the news that the Huntington (CA) PD had put up hundreds of surveillance cameras downtown. The Privacy Act was still in the works. Sen. Sam Irwin (SC) came to visit us one day, and said that the real potential for invasion of privacy was the computer. Since then, so much has happened on the surveillance front that I can’t believe a few hundred cameras upset the whole staff. Or that we thought Orwell’s “1984” had arrived when PDs across the country were considering hooking up the computers the better to share. That prompted a bunch or research re the privacy right which we discovered was not there (in Constitution) but implicit in the Declaration of Independence.

Eyeborg is not as threatening as it would’ve seemed then, but I guess it depends on whose eye socket it’s deployed in.

I view it as an art project combining art and science.  Art is problem solving, as is disability.  Consider where most of the research funding in our US society goes, (I don’t know about Canada.).

There’s a little machine running around on Mars, but you can’t get a wheelchair that rolls on sand, bumpy surface in NYC.  (Hugely expensive one exists that can go over a sidewalk curb without overturning.)

Ironically, surveillance funding and variations on drones, satellite imagery is way ahead of the EYEBORG project.  I do not fear EYEBORG concept, since there’s already cameras on well over ten thousand streets in lower Manhattan recording everyone/thing that passes.  That’s just a tip of the government (and some private) visual surveillance.  Remember the camera in midtown Manhattan last year that was inserted into the middle of a wall advertisement on Seventh Avenue (or so) near W. 57thSt.?  One of the militaries was doing a research project.

EYEBORG has potential for artists, disabled people, photograhers/videographers.  Great idea, bravo and thanks for bringing it to this forum.