Join the club for FREE to access the whole archive and other member benefits.

Neil Harbisson

Cyborg artist with antenna implanted to hear colors and space

Born with the inability to see color, Neil Harbisson wears a prosthetic device — he calls it an "eyeborg" — that allows him to hear the spectrum, even those colors beyond the range of human sight. His unique experience of color informs his artwork — which, until he met cyberneticist Adam Montandon at a college lecture, was strictly black-and-white. By working with Montandon, and later with Peter Kese, Harbisson helped design a lightweight eyepiece that he wears on his forehead that transposes the light frequencies of color hues into sound frequencies.

Harbisson's artwork blurs the boundaries between sight and sound. In his Sound Portraits series, he listens to the colors of faces to create a microtonal chord. In the City Colours project, he expresses the capital cities of Europe in two colors (Monaco is azure and salmon pink; Bratislava yellow and turquoise).

Visit website: https://www.cyborgarts.com/neil-harbisson

 neilharbisson

 neil-harbisson-884065172

 NeilHarbisson

Details last updated 10-Dec-2020

Neil Harbisson News

Hacking Our Senses Will Transform How We Experience the World

Hacking Our Senses Will Transform How We Experience the World

Singularity Hub - 04-Oct-2016

Advances in neuroscience and technology may soon give us more than 5 senses. Bach-y-Rita: “We do...