A cyborg antenna is an osseointegrated device implanted in a human skull."I'm a human with an antenna", Newsday (BBC World Service), 18 March 2014 The antenna, composed of a wireless camera on one end and a wireless sound vibration implant on the other end, allows wireless communication and wireless transmission of images, sound or video from skull to skull.Turk, Victoria "The cyborg who can hear what other people are looking at", Vice (magazine), 19 March 2014 The antenna uses audible vibrations in the skull to report information. This includes measurements of electromagnetic radiation, phone calls, music, as well as video or images which are transmitted through audible vibrations.Jeffries, Stuart "Neil Harbisson, the world's first cyborg artist", The Guardian, 5 May 2014 The Wi-Fi enabled antenna also allows the reception signals and data from satellites.Rawle, Tom "EXCLUSIVE: Human cyborg who HEARS colour is using antenna to 'see' SPACE" , Daily Star, 24 April 2015Alfredo M. Ronchi: Eculture: Cultural Content in the Digital Age. Springer (New York, 2009). p.319
History The first antenna was created in England in 2003 by Neil Harbisson. The invention, under the heading Bridging the Island of the Colourblind Project, won a British award in Innovation (Submerge 2004) Submerge Innovation Award (Bristol, 2004) and a European award in Content Tools and Interface Design (Europrix 2004).Europrix Europrix Awards In 2007, Peter Kese, a software developer from Kranj, Slovenia, made further developments to the antenna by increasing the number of color hues to 360 and adding color saturation through different volume levels.Harbisson, Neil. Modern Painters, The International Contemporary Art Magazine pp.70-73. New York, June 2008. In 2009, Matias Lizana, a student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya developed the antenna into a chip as part of his final year project.Sanchis, Ima. "La veo en blanco y negro pero la oigo en colores", La Contra de La Vanguardia, 10 July 2010. The chip allows users to have the antenna implanted and to hear colors beyond the limits of human perception such as infrared and ultraviolet.Millás, Juan José. "El Cyborg del Tercer Ojo", El País, 15 Jan 2012.
Color to sound scales
Harbisson's Sonochromatic Music Scale (2003) is a microtonal and logarithmic scale with 360 notes in an octave. Each note corresponds to a specific degree of the color wheel. The scale was introduced to the first antenna in 2004. Modern Painters, The International Contemporary Art Magazine pp 70-73 (New York, June 2008)
Harbisson's Pure Sonochromatic Scale (2005) is a non-logarithmic scale based on the transposition of light frequencies to sound frequencies. The scale discards color as being part of a color wheel and ignores musical/logarithmic perception so it can overstep the limits of human perception. The introduction of the new scale to the eyeborg in 2010, allows users to decide whether they want to perceive colors logarithmically or not.
Collaborations
Since 2005, antennas have been donated to blind communities in Europe, Asia and America with the aim of helping the blind develop the sense of color.EFE "Tecnologia cyborg para la vision" , EFE, 27 October 2011 The first blind person to try out an eyeborg was Sabriye Tenberken followed by blind students from Braille Without Borders in Tibet and members of the Sociedad de Ciegos de Pichincha in Ecuador.Redacción "Una fundación se dedica a convertir humanos en ciborgs" El Comercio (Peru), 1 Mar 2011.
In 2011, vice-president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno announced that his government would collaborate with the Cyborg Foundation to create antennas and new sensory extensions.Redaccion "Gobierno impulsara plan para no videntes" , El Tiempo (Ecuador), 30 October 2011. In 2012, after lecturing at Escola Politécnica de Pernambuco in Recife,Redação "Primeiro ciborgue do mundo estará nesta quarta na UPE" , Diário de Pernambuco, 30 April 2012 the Cyborg Foundation signed a partnership to create antennas and other new human extensions in collaboration with Universidade de Pernambuco in Brazil.Lins, Letícia "Homem-ciborgue desenvolve projeto no Brasil", O Globo, 2 May 2012
Antennas are currently being treated as body parts rather than as devices.Maia, Rafael "Nao quero vender olhos" , Terra Networks, 9 February 2012.
See also Neuroprosthetics Sonochromatism Synesthesia
References
External links Video: How the eyeborg works Eyeborg Website (Eyeborg chip development site) Article about an eyeborg user on Wired (USA 2008) Eyeborg user example on The Sunday Times (UK, 2008) Information from BBC (UK, 2005) Neil Harbisson's personal website