“Of course I get stopped by strangers, ” Neil Harbisson laughs. “First, people thought it was a reading light, later a GoPro or some kind of selfie-stick. Some people have been fearful, others have said what I do is anti-human or ‘against God’. And others have just found it ridiculous or funny. The reactions have been very interesting to witness.”
And no wonder. The 37-year-old artist, who explores the intersection of humans and technology, has a self-designed antenna protruding from the top of his head. Remarkably, it extends the normal range of human senses and allows him–as someone profoundly colour-blind–to feel colour through sound vibrations in his skull. The tech has had several upgrades, adding infrared or wireless connectivity. And, just to be clear, Harbisson isn’t wearing his antenna–it’s osio-integrated, which is to say that the bone in his head has grown into the metal. It’s so much part of him that in the UK he’s become the first government-recognised cyborg.
Cyborg is a term science-fiction has spun into the dystopian visions of , or the Borg in . Part-man, partmachine and all rather uncanny–if not plain
