The Leading Speakers Bureau

Cyborg artist

Neil Harbisson is a Catalan-raised, British-born contemporary artist and cyborg activist best known for having an antenna implanted in his skull and for being officially recog-nised as a cyborg by a govern-ment. The antenna allows him to
perceive visible and invisible col-ours such as infrareds and ultravio-lets via sound waves. The an-tenna’s internet connection allows him to receive colours from space as well as images, videos, music or phone calls directly into his head via external devices such as mo-bile phones or satellites.

First officially recognized Cyborg by a government

[expand title=”In detail”] Neil Harbisson studied art and mu-sic at various schools in Spain. At the age of 11, he began to com-pose his first piano pieces and with 16 years, he studied fine art at the Institut Alexandre Satorras. In 2001, Harbisson moved to Ireland to finish his piano studies at Dub-lin’s Waltons New School of Music. In 2002, he moved to England to study music composition at Dartington College of Arts. The antenna is a result of the co-operation between Adam Montandon, a cybernetics graduates, and Neil Harbisson himself. For this work, they earned the award for Innovation and Submerge in Bristol and the European Award for multimedia interface Design EUROPRIX Top Talent Award in Vienna. Together with Moon Ribas he co­founded the Cyborg Foundation in 2010, an international organisation that aims to help humans become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgism as a social and artistic movement.[/expand]

[expand title=”What he offers you”]Harbisson identifies himself as a cyborg, he feels both his mind and body are united to cybernetics. In his presentations Neil Harbisson kidnaps his audience in his world and illu-strates in a brilliant way how his an-tenna really works. Furthermore, he underlines how important new tech-nologies really are and tells funny anecdotes he already has expe-rienced because of the antenna. [/expand]

[expand title=”How he presents”]His special and unconventional presentations, as well as his great mixture of a good sense of humour and simple explanations about tech-nology, making him a highly appreci-ated guest for every kind of event. [/expand]

Watch a video presentation of Neil Harbisson

Topics

What’s a cyborg?

Cyborg Art

Artificial Senses

The Future of the Human

The use of the internet as a sense

Cyborg Activism

Cyborg Law

Transpecies

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