In light of the discussion of cyborgs, JenniCAM and the like, I thought you all might find this piece by Japanese artist Takehito Etani interesting. It is called 'The Third Eye Project'. Takehito created a video device that is mounted to the user's head that enables them to see themselves from the third person perspective.
There are some great videos on there of Takehito walking around Times Square and trying to cook. It is definitely worth having a look at.
Another piece that I think will be of interest is Domestic Tension by an Iraqi American artist called Wafaa Bilal. Bilal set himself up in a gallery for 30 days with a webcam hooked up to a paintball gun. People could log in from home and control the gun to shoot him anytime day or night. To me this is the next step from JenniCAM (obviously Bilal has a political motive behind his work rather than trying to redevelop JenniCAM). Here the viewer is able to actively engage with what they are watching on their computer instead of just passively observing. Something interesting to note about this piece is that a whole bunch of people tried to hack the system to make the gun fire faster/etc in order to inflict more pain upon Bilal and another group tried to hack the system in order to stop people from hurting Bilal.
Anyway, just some art for thought.
Ooh, this seems very interesting and very apt for an upcoming assignment in another unit. Thanks for sharing, Stefan!
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