Jeff Gough

It is 2013 and the early adopters of lifelogging photography are already among us. Small wearable cameras, such as Memoto, record and upload everything their wearer sees, maintaining a permanent online visual memory. The launch of Google Glass next year will propel lifelogging into the mainstream.

In a future with ubiquitous lifelogging, increasingly advanced face-recognition technology, ever-growing social networking databases and creeping expansion of state surveillance powers, one's anonymity becomes a precious and fragile commodity. One can value privacy without having something to hide.

'Obscura' is a wearable camera-blocking talisman that enshrouds its bearer in a small, photography-free bubble invisible to humans. It locates cameras by exploiting the retroreflective properties of their imaging chips, then dazzles them with a small dot of eye-safe laser light.

Jeff Gough is an electronic engineer, craftsman, hacker and designer. Before studying at the RCA, he worked as a freelance engineer helping artists and designers to realise diverse and technically complex projects for clients such as Disney, Bombay Sapphire, Muse, U2, Rihanna, The Black Eyed Peas and Take That.