The 3rd I

from James Wiltgen, who found this in the NYT's ArtsBeat section:

NOVEMBER 16, 2010, 2:09 PM
Art that Looks Backward

By KATE TAYLOR
A New York University photography professor will have a camera surgically implanted in the back of his head for several months as part of an art project commissioned by the government of Qatar, The Wall Street Journal reported. The project, called “The 3rd I” and organized by a new Qatari museum called Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, will involve the camera taking pictures at one-minute intervals with the images being streamed to a computer database and then appearing in different sequences, some in real time, on monitors in an exhibition space in Doha between December and May.

According to The Journal, the professor, Wafaa Bilal, has offered to cover the camera with a lens cap when he is on the N.Y.U. campus, out of respect for students’ privacy, but the university may require him to turn the camera off. In a statement on Tuesday the university said it was in discussions with Mr. Bilal about to how to ensure that his camera would not take pictures in N.Y.U. buildings. Mr. Bilal, who was born in Iraq, has provoked controversy with earlier projects, including one in 2008 called “Virtual Jihadi,” in which he altered a video game to insert an avatar of himself as a suicide-bomber targeting George W. Bush.