A New York University professor has an eye in the back of his head after undergoing a surgical procedure to install a camera in his skull, part of an art exhibition commissioned by a new museum in Qatar.
“I am going about my daily life as I did before the procedure, but I ask for a period of rest before I am going to give any interviews,” Professor Wafaa Bilal said in a statement issued Tuesday through a spokeswoman, Mahdis Keshavarz.
The surgery was performed in the U.S., according to Keshavarz. She declined to specify the hospital or doctor, saying Bilal preferred not to disclose that information until after he has healed. She also declined to specify the precise date of Bilal’s surgery, though as recently as Friday evening she said the procedure had not yet been performed.
The thumbnail-size camera implanted in his head will automatically snap one photograph per minute for an entire year, as The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Bilal, an assistant professor in the photography and imaging department of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, intends to activate the camera on Dec. 15.
The project, titled “The 3rd I,” was commissioned by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Bilal plans to broadcast a live stream of images from the camera to monitors at the exhibit in Qatar, scheduled to open Dec. 30.
Last week Bilal launched a website connected to the project. Whether a live feed of pictures from his head-camera will also appear on his website remains unclear. (more)
Real Life
• The Georgian special services arrested 15 people today accused of spying for Russia. (more)
• The highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage was expected to plead guilty to additional charges that he tried to collect money from old contacts in Russia while in prison, a newspaper reported Thursday. (more)
• Freed U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd says she doesn’t know if she’ll return to Iran to face espionage charges with her two companions still held in prison there. (more)
• Authorities in Norway have launched an investigation into whether the United States conducted illegal surveillance in the Nordic country, the Ministry of Justice told CNN Thursday. (more)
• Officials of the US embassy in Copenhagen may be illegally collecting data about Danish citizens, they find suspicious, the Politiken newspaper reports. (more)
• Taiwan got another spy shock recently when they arrested two men who were spying for China. The shock part came from the fact that one of the men, Lo Chi Cheng was an army colonel. The other was an unnamed Taiwanese businessman who had business in China and spied on China. Then came another shock. The other guy was really a double agent, who had recruited the colonel, who obtained classified information that was then delivered to China. (more)
• Northrop Grumman’s ginormous experimental spying blimp is progressing rapidly… The Army awarded Northrop a $517 million contract in June to develop a trio of unmanned, seven-story, football-field sized mega-blimps called Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles. If successful, the blimp will stay in the air for up to three weeks at a time, using 2500 pounds’ worth of “
sensors, antennas, data links and signals intelligence equipment” to capture still and video images of civilians and adversaries below and send the pictures to troops’ bases. (
more)
Art Imitates Real Life
• Though based on a true story with a well-known outcome, Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” is as suspenseful as any fictional thriller — and considerably more tragic. Based-in-truth thriller about CIA spy Valerie Plame. With Naomi Watts, Sean Penn. Director: Doug Liman (1:44). PG-13: Language. At area theaters. (more) (trailer)
• NBC is scrapping J.J. Abrams’ spy series “Undercovers…” …middling reviews and declining ratings made the show increasingly destined for the chopping block. Wednesday night’s airing delivered only 5.8 million viewers. Three more episodes will air in the coming weeks. (more)
• Like Aaron Eckhart? Spy dramas? Then perhaps you’ll like THE EXPATRIATE. Former Bat villain Aaron Eckhart (THE RUM DIARY, RABBIT HOLE) has been cast as an ex-CIA agent in the spy drama from German director Philipp Stölzl (NORTH FACE, BABY) and newcomer scribe A.E. Amel. xists, his coworkers are gone, and his assistant is really a trained operative out to kill him. Production begins next year Belgium and Montreal. (more)
via http://www.coolpicturegallery.net
