NYU Professor's Body Rejects Camera That Was Surgically Implanted in His Head

Plenty of people react badly to having a camera on them -- perhaps none more so than Wafaa Bilal.

The New York University photography professor was forced to remove a computer webcam that had been surgically implanted in his head because his body rejected the foreign object.

Doctors removed the camera from Bilal's head today because his body failed to accept one of three titanium posts that had been wedged between his skin and his skull to mount the contraption, The Huffington Post reports.

Wafaa Bilal with a camera implant in his head

Brad Farwell

Talk about having photography on your mind. Wafaa Bilal had a camera surgically implanted on the back of his head last year, but doctors were forced to remove the device after the New York University professor's body rejected the device.

Bilal decided to affix a camera to the back of his head for a planned yearlong art project called the 3rdi.

The camera, inspired by his exile from Iraq during the first Gulf War when he was forced to leave everything behind, was designed to photograph the environment behind Bilal and transmit the images wirelessly to a website and LCD monitors in an art museum in Doha, Qatar.

With the camera automatically configured to submit one picture every minute, the act of taking photos was out of Bilal's hands.

But that doesn't mean the project has been easy.

When interviewed by AOL News in December, Bilal said having a camera stuck to his head has altered the way he lived his life.

"It hurts," he said.

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And that hurt didn't go away. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bilal experienced constant pain even after treatment with antibiotics and steroids -- forcing doctors to remove the problematic titanium post.

However, Bilal says the show must go on.

He has started tying the camera around his neck until the wound on the back of his head heals. Once he's feeling better, Bilal hopes to find a way to attach a lighter camera to the two remaining posts.

"I'm determined to continue with it," he reportedly said.

Read more at The Huffington Post and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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