Neil Harbisson: Cyborg Artist

Neil Harbisson’s existence as the world’s first officially recognized cyborg can be seen as a form of living performance art. His work challenges the boundaries of identity, perception, and the relationship between humans and technology, transforming his body into instrument of artistic expression.

Born colorblind, Harbisson sought to transcend this limitation by implanting an antennae into his skull which detects the frequencies of colors and converts them into vibrations, enabling him to hear colors beyond the visible spectrum, including ultraviolet and infrared.

Using his implant, Harbisson has created a series of “sound portraits”. As he perceives the different shades and tones of the person’s skin, hair, and eyes, he converts these color frequencies into corresponding sounds. This innovative approach not only redefines portraiture by combining visual art with auditory experience but also challenges conventional ways of perceiving identity, merging the sensory worlds of sight and sound into a unified description of identity.

Harbisson’s daily life, in which he “hears” colors that others can only see, functions as an ongoing artistic performance that challenges viewers to reconsider the boundaries between artistic expression, daily life, and creative performance. His very life functions as a constant exploration of perception and sensory experience. By making his enhanced perception public, Harbisson invites others to engage with the expanded sensory experiences that his cybernetic enhancement allows, thereby extending his performance beyond the personal and into the communal. Harbisson’s public appearances and talks often take on the character of performance art, where his body becomes a focal point for discussions on the intersection of technology and human experience. His choice to present himself as a cyborg in public is a performative act that confronts societal norms and expectations about what it means to be human. In this way, Harbisson’s body becomes a site of artistic and intellectual exploration, where the boundaries between human and machine, natural and artificial, are continuously negotiated.