‘Meeting a real cyborg was mind-boggling,’ says film director

Self-proclaimed ‘cyborg artist’ Neil Harbisson has been stirring up controversy for the past 20 years with his ‘eyeborg’ – a surgically attached antenna.

Harbisson, who grew up in Barcelona, ​​is color blind. He was born with the rare condition achromatopsia, which affects one in 33,000 people.

That is to say, he sees in what he calls “shades of gray”: only black, white, and shades of gray.

But in 2004 he decided to have surgery. It would change his life and his senses. He had an antenna attached to the back of his head, which converts light waves into sound.

When film director Carey Born came across Harbisson, classified by Guinness World Records as “the first officially recognized ‘cyborg’,” She was “stunned and astonished”.

Her next step was to meet him and make a film about him – Cyborg: A Documentary.

It explores how he lives his life and the consequences and implications of his unusual surgical procedure.

“He didn’t do it to replace the feeling he was missing, but to improve it,” Born told the BBC.

“So that was actually the main thing that I found fascinating.”

As a student, Harbisson met Adam Montandon, a cyberneticist at the University of Plymouth. Using a headset, a webcam and a laptop, he was able to ‘hear’ colours, converting light waves into sounds.

Harbisson seized on this experience, but wanted more: he wanted to merge the technology with his own body. This was repeatedly rejected by the Spanish bioethical committees.

He eventually convinced anonymous doctors to operate on him, removing part of the back of his skull so the antennas could be implanted and the bone could grow over them.

Harbisson, who calls himself a “cyborg artist,” said, “I don’t feel like I’m using technology, I feel like I am technology.”

The term cyborg refers to a being with both human and machine elements, giving them enhanced abilities.

Cyborgs are already a fixture of popular culture and science fiction, appearing in TV series such as Doctor Who, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and in films such as Terminator and Robocop.

The chip in the back of Harbisson’s head allows him to hear the colors not through his ears, but through the bone of his skull. It also connects to nearby devices and the internet.

His partner, Moon Ribas, says in the film, “He’s brave, he likes to do things differently,” saying his antennae “allow me to expand my perception of reality.”

Harbisson explains in the film that he had headaches for five weeks after the operation and that it took him about five months to get used to the antennae.

Born says that after the procedure he “got depressed, just like when they did trepanations (a surgical procedure that drills a hole in the skull) in the ’60s and ’70s.

“People suffered from very severe side effects, and he did too.”

She admits she wasn’t sure what to expect when they first met, but she found “Neil and Moon really nice… I thought they would broach the subject in an accessible way.”

The film shows how people react to him, for example by asking him questions about his appearance. We also see how he creates works of art based on his perception of colour.

But life after Antennas hasn’t always been easy. The film also reveals that he has received death threats from people who object to the way he has altered his body.

Harbisson discusses this extensively in the film.

“We have been getting all kinds of death threats for years, from people who hate what we do because they think it is against nature or against God,” he says.

“So they think we should be stopped.”

The threats caused the couple to decide to move to a new home, but the exact location was kept top secret.

Born says: “It’s such a shame… they are very friendly people.”

She adds, however, that her film may send a warning signal about body augmentation.

Harbisson’s credo, which also encompasses his own business interests, is: “Design yourself.”

But Born wants to make people think about “security – and the hacking potential that all this can bring”.

“There is a safety issue in terms of who is doing it, what are the circumstances in which they are doing it, and what are the potential outcomes or consequences?” she adds.

A 2022 study by the American think tank Pew Research Centerfocused on AI and human enhancement, suggests the American public may have some reservations.

Respondents were “generally more enthusiastic than concerned about the idea of ​​various possible changes in human capabilities.”

But many were “hesitant or undecided” about the benefits of biomedical interventions to “alter cognitive abilities or the course of human health.”

The film also highlights that BBC News presenter Stephen Sackur raised potential ethical concerns about body augmentation three years earlier.

He challenged Harbisson during an interview at a Swiss debate conference, the St. Gallen Symposium.

“There are all sorts of reasons why this is disturbing and alarming… not least of which is that you call yourself a trans species, but at the same time you develop skills that are beyond the capabilities of other people,” he said.

He also wondered whether enhancements “are only available to those who have the resources to undertake these kinds of things, potentially creating a super species.”

But Harbisson said his nonprofit Cyborg Foundation is trying to make such improvements “as available as possible.”

“It’s not expensive to develop a new sense, but we give all these senses to machines, like cars or hand dryers,” he said.

“You can just add them to your body – they’re just people wanting to expand their perception.”

Body modification artist Jenova Rain collaborated with Harbisson at the Manchester Science Festival in 2018 and considers his work “amazing and very important”.

“He’s pushing the boundaries of what we as a species are trying to achieve,” she tells the BBC.

“I think we need more people who are as brave and bold as he was.”

Her work also involves the combination of technology and the human body: she implants microchips in people’s hands, about 100 times a year.

For example, the microchip could open a door, just like an electronic key for a car.

“We wanted to make this particularly accessible to people with disabilities, or mobility and dexterity issues, who may struggle to use keys,” she told the BBC.

Dani Clode, an augmentation designer at the University of Cambridge’s neuroscience plasticity lab, finds Harbisson “fascinating” but says she and her colleagues are still figuring out whether augmentation is “a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I’m choosing my words carefully here because it’s an exciting and interesting area. We just want to make sure it’s done safely,” she told the BBC.

Her work includes creating a removable extra thumb and a tentacle arm.

Clode demonstrates the thumb, operated by a pressure pad under the wearer’s big toe.

“I make the devices and the lab uses them to understand the brain of the future,” she explains, adding that they are studying the impact of expanding the body on the brain.

“After five days of training with this device, (we learned) that we could change the brain,” she says.

“We fundamentally changed the way they used their hand that week, and it showed up in their brains.”

Born warns one last time.

“Cybernetics will happen – it’s happening now,” she says.

“I think politicians, regulators and parts of government are often very slow and the technology doesn’t allow for that.

“Technology is developing at a rapid pace, but we are plodding along.”

She worries about who will ultimately hold the keys to cybernetic technology.

“If it’s all in the hands of a few specific individuals, or a few very elite, very wealthy, influential organizations, then that’s not a democratic process and it’s going to affect all of us.

“So I just warn people in a pleasant, accessible way.”

Cyborg: A Documentary is in UK cinemas from September 20.