The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

In 2003, graffiti writer Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE, was diagnosed with ALS, a debilitating disease that has left most of his body completely motionless except for his eyes. This means that the creative mind inside Tony is crippled because of his body’s physical state.

But through the work of people in Graffiti Research Lab, Free Art and Technology, and OpenFrameworks (with support from The Ebeling Group, the Not Impossible Foundation, and Parsons Communication Design & Technology), Tony is able to continue his craft through the EyeWriter Project. The EyeWriter makes use of eyeball tracking technology to convert Tony’s movements into the open-source Graffiti Markup Language (GML). After recording his movements, the GML is then played back through a computer and projected onto buildings to simulate graffiti.

While some may not be thrilled with the particular use of the technology here, it’s important to note that this is just one example of how eyeball tracking technology can bring people in similar physical states back to life. And that’s pretty neat if you ask me!