Tonya Vlach, an artist living in the San Francisco area, has managed to turn a tragedy into something unique and artistic. After losing her eye in a horrible car accident in 2005, she was depressed and worried about how this would affect her artwork and future.

Luckily, she realized that there was something artistic she could do, that no one else has done before (in real life): replace her eye with a prosthetic eye that housed a tiny video camera.

That idea is, of course, nothing new. Look at the Six Million Dollar Man, the 1970s TV series that created a bionic humanoid.

Arnie in the Terminator films is another example.

But Ms Vlach’s planned intra-ocular camera is souped up for 2011.

Her dream is to make it web optimised, perhaps with its own app, so movement could be controlled externally.

She’d like sensors that respond to blinking, enabling the camera to take still photographs, zoom, focus and turn on and off.

The pupil would be sensitive to light change, dilating as a human eye would.

There would also be functions for geo-tagging and facial recognition.

Such a wish list doesn’t come cheap. But Ms Vlach has already smashed her goal of raising $15,000 by early August, such is the interest from the science community, those other ‘one eyeds’ as she calls them, and beyond.

‘While my prosthesis is an excellent aesthetic replacement, I am interested in capitalising on the current advancement of technology to enhance the abilities of my prosthesis for an augmented reality,’ Ms Vlach writes on her website.

I discovered in a very traumatic and jarring way that you can lose life quickly and without warning- everything that you knew, your memories, your friends and family gone in an instant.

‘This decision to implant a camera in my eye is like inviting a little cinematographer to live in my brain. This consciousness that I’m documenting what I’m observing enables me to be more present and engaged in every moment.’

Ms Vlach has plans for a graphic novel, an experimental documentary, a web series, a game, and a live performance all using the prosthetic.

But such a device could open up a world of opportunity elsewhere from the military through to personal shoppers, turning a disability into something positive.

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