When Sigmund Freud wrote that the Uncanny (in German ‘Unheimlich’) was everything that ought to have remained hidden, but has come to light, it is tempting to imagine he had in the back of his mind the concealed (‘Geheim’) cameras that were in fashion during his early days in Vienna. Eighty years before subminiature ‘spy’ cameras became part of the Cold War secret agent’s kit, manufacturers in France and Germany were already experimenting with devices disguised as everyday domestic objects: books, binoculars, articles of clothing and, more surprisingly, revolvers.
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