AN ARTIST WHO had a camera surgically inserted into his head has been forced to have it removed because his body rejected part of the implant, resulting in constant pain.

Iraqi-born Wafaa Bilal had the camera implanted as part of a year-long project, during which he hoped to take a photograph every minute.

Doctors had originally refused to implant the device – so Bilal went to a body-piercing studio in Los Angeles to have the procedure done there instead, the BBC reports.

The artist and New York University professor has said that he hopes he will be able to reattach the camera, which had been mounted on three posts attached to a titanium base and slipped between his skin and skull. He said that the project is intended to be a comment on surveillance in modern-day society and the ephemeral nature of memory, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Bilal said that he would now wear a camera strapped around his neck in order to continue taking photographs, while he figures out if he can reattach his head camera.