Artist has camera implanted in his head

A tiny camera has been surgically implanted to the back of a New York University professor's head – all in the name of art. 

Visual artist Wafaa Bilal teaches at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He had the surgery for a project called "The 3rd I." It has been commissioned by a new museum in Qatar that opens on Dec 30. 

It is one of 23 contemporary works commissioned for the opening of the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is entitled "Told/Untold/Retold." I am going about my daily life as I did before the procedure," the Iraqi-born artist said in a statement.Bilal, who is teaching three courses this semester at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, will wear the camera for one year. It is 2 inches in diameter and less than an inch thick.The project will raise "important social, aesthetic, political, technological and artistic questions," he said. 

He declined to say when the camera was implanted or other details of the art installation, saying it "will be revealed to the public as part of the museum preview on Dec. 15" and on a website to be launched on the same day.He said he chose to have it put in the back of the head as an allegorical statement about the things we don't see and leave behind.How it all fits together is still a bit of a mystery.The camera will capture his everyday activities at one-minute intervals 24-hours a day and then be transmitted to monitors at the museum, said curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, who commissioned Mr Bilal on behalf of the museum.NYU is concerned about how the artwork will impact students. It says it is talking with Mr Bilal about how best to protect privacy.

From  http://www.telegraph.co.uk