This Is Camera Restricta, the Camera That Stops Users from Being Too Mainstream

All of us possess cameras that act as any normal object would, and that means doing what we want it to do: take photos or film. However, none of us has ever encountered condescending hipster cameras that tell us our photos are too mainstream.

Funny thing is that Camera Restricta doesn't just tell us that our photos are too mainstream by showing the thousands of photos people took in a certain area via geolocation, but it also stops us from making further photos by retracting the shutter and blocking the viewfinder. End result: you can't take any more pictures here.

Want to take some pictures at Louvres? Nope. Want to take some pictures with your girlfriend or family at Eiffel Tower? Nope. Want to just photograph a nice pizza in Rome near the Colosseum? Nope. Geolocation blocks any photo made on a certain radius around a well-known building that has been photographed thousands if not hundred of thousands of times before.

And that's not all, if outrageous numbers don't disgust the hipster in you, the camera is equipped with a speaker that makes a metal-detector-like sound every time you get inside an area filled with online photographs, so you can have an audio cue as well when you're entering a "mainstream radiation" area.

If EU Parliament vetoed it, it doesn't mean people don't want be self-censured

No matter how ridiculous this "mainstream-blocker" camera is, there can be some money to be made. According to philipschmitt.com, after the European Parliament recently voted against a controversial proposal that threatened to restrict the photography of copyrighted buildings and sculptures from public places, all those that would want to ban photography in some places could buy this camera to restrict visitors to shoot, well, other places. What's weird is, why not ban photography completely across the entire area instead of handing visitors "selective photography" cameras?

Anyway, the motivation behind this project is just as weird since philipschmitt.com website claims "the project is not only a piece about censorship in a policital sense, but also questions our photographic practice. With digital photography displacing film, taking pictures has essentially become free, resulting in an infinite stream of imagery" and continues "Camera Restricta introduces new limitations to prevent an overflow of digital imagery."

So yeah, stop being so mainstream!