Core77

When someone gets hit by a car, it's a tragedy. When they suffer permanent injury, such as losing an eye, it becomes a lifelong tragedy. When they seek to turn that tragedy into art, though, it becomes an opportunity, and a fascinating one at that.

Tanya Vlach is a fifth-generation San Franciscan who suffered just such an injury back in 2005, and has both the prosthetic eyeball and eye-patch to prove it. Judging by her blog, she also received a radically altered perspective on life and the nature of perception, and this brings us to the opportunity.

Tanya wants to put a camera in her head.

This is not as insane as it seems. Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of Wired Magazine, recently met Ms. Vlach at a film festival, and the two got to talking about the project. The idea she put forth, and which he has begun publicizing, is to embed a small webcam into her ocular cavity, allowing her to "enhance the abilities of [her] prosthesis for an augmented reality." The camera would record what it sees through her iris onto SD mini card, then transmit the recorded video to an external hard drive, where it could presumably be edited, manipulated, screened, and published. Miniature video technology already exists--one commenter has already pointed out that pill-sized cameras are in common use for gastrointestinal examination--and the ocularist who made her prosthetic is on board for the project too.

Moreover, it seems there's already some precedent for this sort of cybernetistry. If you're not terribly squeamish (there are a couple of close-up shots of an empty eye socket) take a look at the video below:

Tanya has put out an official request for technical assistance in this pursuit, and we're interested enough that we thought we'd push that request on to the Core77 readership. It's more involved than a 1HDC, but on the other hand, aren't you intrigued to see what the world looks like through--literally--someone else's eye?

>>See preliminary dimensions and technical requirements, and make responses here<<