Thoughtographs
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a native of Croatia who received his training at the institutes of technology in Graz, Prague and Budapest, "a forgotten genius of the science of electricity," wanted to build a device that could be used to photograph thoughts. This possibility of an elaborately developed image transfer process ignited the interest of alien productions for a number of reasons - first of all, certain historical occurrences and phenomena. For instance, it's said that the last image a decedent sees is stored in his/her eyes, which, in the case of violent death, could preserve the identity of the victim's murderer. And then there's the occult world's aura photography that's said to be able to physically manifest thoughts solely via concentration on light-sensitive paper and thus even without a camera.
Transferred into the present, this is a matter of an art-immanent reflexive system for which the new photographic images made visible by the camera that has been "customized" on the basis of the idea Tesla came up with emerge. This concept is inseparably linked to a view of a situation that exists in the real world today: that of the Visible Human whose private sphere is an open book, the subject of surveillance cameras whose lenses no longer remain focused on private domains but rather track any person making his/her way through any part of the urban public sphere, the protagonist of the narratives winding through the transcripts of telephone calls recorded by the hierarchical system behind (and in front of) the closed doors aligned along the corridors of power, by the custodians of law and order, by elected or self-appointed monitoring bodies.
If thoughts can be photographed, are they still free? Can they truly be depicted, or, even more alarmingly, can they be interpreted? If this were the case, then surveillance would have achieved its ultimate objective.
(from: Werner Fenz, Thoughts On The Thought Projector by alien productions)