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Edited by Dhyann at 2019-06-29 16:04
[h3 style="text-align: center;"]I can have phone calls to my head," says Neil Harbisson, sitting across the table from me. [/h3][p][br][p style="text-align: center;"]
[br][h4 style="text-align: center;"]Dangling over his forehead is an antenna that curves up and over from the back of his skull. The device, which he calls an "eyeborg", was recently upgraded, meaning his skull is now Bluetooth-enabled. "I can either connect to devices that are near me," he says, "or I can connect to the internet. So I can actually connect to anywhere in the world."[/h4][p style="text-align: center;"][br][p style="text-align: center;"]
[br][p style="text-align: center;"][br][h4 style="text-align: center;"]"Becoming a cyborg isn't just a life decision," he explains. "It's an artistic statement – I'm treating my own body and brain as a sculpture."[/h4][h5 style="text-align: center;"]His antenna is connected to a chip that translates colour into sound. "It detects the light's hue and converts it into a frequency I can hear as a note." The sensor was originally devised to help him counter a rare form of colour blindness called achromatopsia, which affects one in 33,000 people and means he sees the world in greys. [/h5][p][br][p style="text-align: center;"]
[br][p style="text-align: center;"][br][h4 style="text-align: center;"][span style="color: rgb(194, 79, 74);"] He hears Color in vivid colour, transforming his experience of the world – and of art. [/span]"I like listening to Warhol and Rothko because their paintings produce clear notes. I can't listen to Da Vinci or Velázquez because they use closely related tones – they sound like the soundtrack for a horror film." He also links what he hears through his ears to colours: a telephone ring sounds green, while Amy Winehouse is red and pink.[/h4][h4 style="text-align: center;"][span style="color: rgb(249, 150, 59);"]A vibrating chip was placed first against, then inside his skull. In the process, he became the world's first cyborg artist. [/span]Harbisson, 31, is very serious about being regarded as a cyborg. He had to battle with the UK Passport Authority, which at first opposed his aim of having a passport picture showing him with the antenna. [/h4][p][br][p style="text-align: center;"]
[br][p style="text-align: center;"][br][h5 style="text-align: center;"] How far he still has to go was shown in 2012 when police in Barcelona demanded he stopped filming a demonstration. Harbisson replied that he was just walking around with his normal antenna. [/h5][h5 style="text-align: center;"]"I've been a cyborg for 10 years now. I don't feel like I'm using technology, or wearing technology. I feel like I am technology. I don't think of my antenna as a device – it's a body part." He wears it to bed and in the shower. The antenna also allows him to perceive colours beyond the normal human spectrum: he can hear infrared and ultraviolet. "For me, red isn't the colour of passion as it is for many humans," he says. "It's a serene colour. Violet, though, is savage to my ears." [/h5][p][br][p style="text-align: center;"]
[br][p style="text-align: center;"][br][h4 style="text-align: center;"]What next for cyborgism? [/h4][h5 style="text-align: center;"]"We'll start with really simple things, like having a third ear on the back of our heads. Or we could have a small vibrator with an infrared detector built into our heads to detect if there's a presence behind us." Like a car's reversing sensor? "Yes. Isn't it strange we have given this sense to a car, but not to ourselves?" [/h5][p style="text-align: right;"][span style="font-weight: bold;"]Source:-TheGuardian[/span] |
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