Neil Harbisson is a contemporary artist who hears colors. He deliberately chose to hear colors and to make that happen, he underwent surgery which has caused him to become the first person ever to be issued a government ID recognizing him as a cyborg.

Harbisson has a condition known as achromatopsia. For him and others with complete achromatopsia, all three types of cones in the retina are nonfunctional. He sees using only his rods meaning there is no color in his vision. It is a relatively rare condition affecting only about one in every 30,000 people. The thing that is even more rare though is Harbisson’s management of the condition. First off, you might expect someone with this condition not to gravitate toward the arts, but while color is one of the elements of art, it is not required. Art is about human expression and creativity. Harbisson found a very creative means of enhancing his senses. Neil Harbisson has an antenna. Basically, there is a camera at the end of the antenna. A digital camera detects light and stores it as electrical signals. Inside the antenna, the colors are translated into sound. Different hues or colors are converted to different sound frequencies. It is actually attuned to even detect light that is invisible in the infrared and ultraviolet spectra.

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Neil Harbisson | Cyborg Artist