Cyborg Art
Glimpses into transhumanist and extraordinary trans-species experiences combining technology and the senses.
This is essay 4 of 6 essays for 1729 Writers Cohort #1. Apply to 1729 today at https://www.1729.com.
This post is the fourth of hopefully a series of essays that try to reflect on issues related to aspects of transhumanism, which can arguably be defined as the enhancement of the human condition through technology to achieve more longevity, cognitive abilities, emotional states, and other previously seemingly impossible feats. Again, I am not an expert in this emerging field, so these series of essays hopefully serve as notes and logs on reflection points as I try to learn more about relevant issues.
This new essay focuses on cyborgs. A cyborg is a person who is implanted with or attached with technological components that enhance abilities, functions, or senses. Cyborgs are arguably hybrid beings that combine organic body parts with non-organic technological body parts.
Cyborg technology is not just limited to the realm of films such as Terminator, as it has emerged in practical fields such as prosthetics. Check out the University of Utah's Bionic Engineering Lab, which is building AI-powered bionic prosthetic legs that can be controlled via sensory detection and make serious athletic movements look easy. Here is a demo from their Twitter page:
That's pretty cool. A lot of respect for these breakthroughs that enhance lives and restore human dignity.
Then, as I dug further into cyborgs, I stumbled into something even more niche —cyborg art. It is a fascinating new subject that I would like to explore further. Cyborg art, in a nutshell, produces transhumanist experiences and enables new art works by implanting technology to stimulate the senses. It marries the “sci-fi” with the “artistic,” in efforts to create new forms of expression that defy traditions and define new sensory frontiers.
The cyborg art movement arguably started in the mid-2000s in Great Britain, but has since spread to other places in the world. This essay will attempt to introduce a few cyborg artists and their representative works.
Neil Harbisson
Neil Harbisson, from Britain, became the first person in human history to implant a sensory antenna into his skull, and for that, he holds the distinction of being the first legally recognized cyborg and cyborg artist. Harbisson was born color blind, and so, not discouraged, he co-created an antenna in 2003 that allowed him to sense colors through through wireless transmissions that end up as audible vibrations. This cybernetic antenna was subsequently implanted permanently in his skull. The antenna is connected wirelessly to the Internet, and thus Harbisson can receive images, videos, and sounds from afar. Harbisson is even able to detect colors not noticeable by the naked eye, such as ultraviolet and infrared.
Source: Dan Wilton from http://installationmag.com/color-my-world-with-sound/ (under Creative Commons Attribution License)
Harbisson has become a pioneer in creating new works of art through his extraordinary transhumanist senses. One time, he collected transmissions from colored paintings on Times Square and then reproduced the colors on canvas. He goes in front of various people and personalities, extrapolates sound files containing multiple notes that represent different colors, and subsequently creates portraits from these files. He also senses colors transmitted from different cities and places he visit and then exhibits them.
Source: Sonochromatic Records by Neil Harbisson (under Creative Commons Attribution License)
Moon Ribas
Moon Ribas, from Spain, is a dear friend of Neil Harbisson and an extraordinary cyborg artist in her own right as well. Ribas has a sensor implanted permanently in her foot, so that she can sense vibrations from different earthquakes around the globe. Moon applies her seismic sensing toward her performances as a dancer. During her performances, she feels earthquakes in a far corner of the world, and her moves mirror the earthquakes’ intensity.
Here is a link to Ribas' Tedx Talk:
Source: Tedx Talks
Manel De Aguas
Manel De Aguas, also from Spain, is another extraordinary cyborg artist, known for “Weather Fins” on his head that enable him to sense weather and temperature conditions, as well as predict weather changes and altitude. De Aguas identifies as a transpecies — part human and part trans-human — and co-founded the Transpecies Society to promote transpecies rights. Artistically. De Aguas has thrived in performances at various festivals. Those interested in learning more about artistic pursuits of De Aguas and similar cyborg artsts can listen to this podcast episode that he and Moon Ribas recorded for the Shaping Business Minds with Art podcast.
Source: Irongate10 (under Creative Commons Attribution License)
Cyborg Activism and Cyborg Foundation
The cyborg art movement has also given birth to cyborg activism, which fights for the acceptance of being "cyborg” by mainstream societies, protects rights of cyborgs, and advances the fusion of humans with technology or cybernetics. In 2010, Neil Harbisson and Moon Ribas co-founded the Cyborg Foundation, which was first domiciled initially in Barcelona, and later relocated to New York City. The foundation has co-authored a series of rights together known as the Cyborg Civil Rights, reproduced here (Source: Cyborg Foundation):
Freedom from Disassembly: A person shall enjoy the sanctity of bodily integrity and be free from unnecessary search, seizure, suspension or interruption of function, detachment, dismantling, or disassembly without due process.
Freedom of Morphology: A person shall be free (speech clause) to express themselves through temporary or permanent adaptions, alterations, modifications, or augmentations to the shape or form of their bodies. Similarly, a person shall be free from coerced or otherwise involuntary morphological changes.
Equality for Mutants: A legally recognised mutant shall enjoy all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities extended to natural persons.
Right to Bodily Sovereignty: A person is entitled to dominion over intelligences and agents, and their activities, whether they are acting as permanent residents, visitors, registered aliens, trespassers, insurgents, or invaders within the person's body and its domain.
Right to Organic Naturalisation: A person shall be free from exploitive or injurious 3rd party ownerships of vital and supporting bodily systems. A person is entitled to the reasonable accrual of ownership interest in 3rd party properties affixed, attached, embedded, implanted, injected, infused, or otherwise permanently integrated with a person's body for a long-term purpose.
Conclusion
Cyborg activism and cyborg art are fascinating and avant-garde topics that at first glance seem to be “sci-fi” enough to come out of the X-men movie set. That said, what may seem to be “sci-fi” to many at any given time period can in reality be the pioneering first moves toward future developments and wider adoption. At one time in history, things such as organ transplants or blood transfusion — which are commonplace in today's medical lexicon — were deemed witchcraft or science fiction. Less than twenty years ago, the idea of a digital currency not backed by any nation state and existing independent of banks would have sounded preposterous. Perhaps, one day, our descendants would walk the streets of New York, Rome, or Shanghai with antennae, sensors, and bionic implants, like we do today with our smartphones and wireless devices.
This post is purely for reflection and information purposes, and it does not constitute any advocacy for any political, scientific, legal, or ethical position. For earlier posts and musings, please visit whatifwhatif.substack.com.