American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats has developed a ‘millennium camera’ that has the capability to capture the evolving landscape of a western Massachusetts mountain range over the next about 1,000 years. Keats has intended to mount the camera in a churchless steeple on a college campus.

The ‘millennium camera’ developed by the San Francisco writer and self-described experimental philosopher is a cylindrical device. The camera is light enough to hold in hand. According to Keats, the small device could survive for many centuries. Keats said that the device could encourage people to think further than their lifespan. The camera could allow people to think about deep time in which the world changes on a grand scale.

Keats said that to make possible to think in deep time, it is important to use today’s technology in right way. The millennium camera’ could create sort of a feedback loop in deep time “where setting up the camera now, looking out into the far future, allows for people who are alive in the far future to see the decisions we made through the effect that they had”, Keats added.

While answering whether the camera will work on not, Keats said that he is not sure about that. According to him, he is not sure whether someone in 3015 will retrieve the camera and open it as 1,000 years is a long time. About the camera, Keats said that the ‘millennium camera’ is very simple, so there are very few chances that it would fail mechanically.

According to him, to capture the exposure, he has adapted a Renaissance art technique. The technique has rose madder, which is an organic-based oil paint. It has been applied directly to the copper in the back of the camera, Keats said.