Neil Harbisson
Encyclopedia
Neil Harbisson is a Catalan
raised, Northern Ireland
born artist, musician and performer best known for his self-extended ability to hear colours. In 2004 he became the first person in the world to wear an eyeborg
. The inclusion of the eyeborg on his passport photo has been claimed by some to be official recognition of Harbisson as a cyborg
. Color and the use of technology as an extension of the performer, and not as part of the performance, are the central themes in Harbisson's work. In 2010, he founded the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization to help humans become cyborgs.
, a condition that only allows him to see in black and white. He grew up in Mataró (Spain) where he studied music, dance and drama at various schools. He began to compose piano pieces at the age of 11. At school, classmates thought he was just being lazy every time he asked one of them to pass the red paint in an art class, or pick out a blue pen. He dressed exclusively in black and white. "What was the point in wearing something I couldn't appreciate?" he asks. At the age of 16 he started studying Fine Art at Institut Alexandre Satorras, where he was given special permission to use only black, white and gray colors in his works. Harbisson's early works are all in black and white.
In May 2001, he gained media attention in Spain after climbing on a tree to save three trees from being cut in the center of Mataró
. Harbisson lived on the tree for several days, and was supported by over 3,000 people who signed a petition to maintain the trees. After days of protest, the city hall announced the trees would not be cut.
Harbisson moved to Ireland in September 2001 to finish his piano studies at Dublin's "Walton's New School of Music". In 2002 he moved to England to study Music Composition at Dartington College of Arts
.
, Harbisson attended a lecture on cybernetics, particularly on sensory extensions via cybernetics, given by Adam Montandon, a Plymouth University
student. Neil found this of immense interest and at the end of the lecture he went up to Adam to explain his condition. From that moment they started working on the eyeborg project.
The eyeborg works with a head mounted camera that picks up the colors directly in front of a person, and converts them in real-time into sound waves.
Neil memorised the frequencies related to each colour: high frequency hues are high-pitched, while low frequency hues sound bolder. In Vienna, they co-presented their Eyeborg project, one of more than 400 entries from 29 different countries, and won the Europrix Award in Content Tools and Interface Design (2004), as well as the Innovation Award (Submerge, Bristol 2004).
In 2007, while hitch-hiking around Europe, Harbisson met Peter Kese in Ljubljana
, a software developer from Kranj
, Slovenia
. Kese offered to develop the eyeborg even further so that Harbisson could perceive color saturation and not only color hue
s. After a few weeks he had developed a new eyeborg model that allowed Harbisson to perceive up to 360 different hues through microtones and saturation through different volume levels.
Matias Lizana, a student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya is currently developing the eyeborg into a small chip as part of his final year project. The new chip will allow Harbisson to hear colours in stereo and to implant the eyeborg in his forehead.
(Barcelona), was the overall winner of the Cre@tic Awards, organized by Tecnocampus Mataró.
does not define his condition accurately because the relation between color and sound varies depending on each person, whereas sonochromatopsia is an extra sense that relates color to sound objectively and equally to everyone.
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 eyeborg
in 2004.
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.
(London), at the Museumsquartier
(Vienna), at the Royal College of Art Gallery (London), at Can Manyé (Alella
), at Galeria Tramart (Barcelona) and at Venice's Giudecca 795 Contemporary Art Gallery during the 54th Venice Biennale
.
In 2007 Harbisson started hitch-hiking around Europe to find the main colors of capital cities, visiting more than 50 countries as well as travelling around Britain. He scanned each capital until he was able represent each city with two main hues. In Monaco, it was azure and salmon pink; in Bratislava it was yellow and turquoise; and in Andorra it was dark green and fuchsia. Under the title Capital Colors of Europe Harbisson has exhibited the colours of each capital in several European galleries including Spain, Andorra, UK, and Croatia.
The eyeborg not only allows him to perceive and paint in color but it also means that everyday sounds, such as ring tones or music, become associated with colours. Color Scores are a series of paintings where Harbisson transforms into color the first 100 notes of well-known musical pieces.
Sound Portraits are portraits of people that Harbisson creates by listening to the colors of faces. Each face creates a different micro tone chord depending on its colours. In order to create a sound portrait he needs to stand in front of the person and point his eyeborg at the different parts of the face, he then writes down the different notes on a special 360 lined manuscript paper. He explains that photographs can not be used to create these portraits as colors are not the same on pictures than live. Since 2005 he has created sound portraits of Prince Charles, Antoni Tàpies
, Tracey Emin
, Leonardo di Caprio, Peter Brook
, Al Gore
, Sir Tim Berners-Lee
and Woody Allen
among others.
existence of color. ‘It was a black and white instrument, perfect for me.’
It was inevitable that his first performed composition as a cyborg was a marriage of paint and music. In Piano Concerto No. 1, Neil literally painted a Steinway & Sons
grand piano, using the color frequencies to produce notes. With his next composition, the Pianoborg Concerto, the piano was 'prepared', by attaching a computer to the underside, the sensor of the eyeborg being positioned above the keys. When a color was shown to the sensor, the computer picked up the frequency and relayed this to the piano, which then played the corresponding note. Neil said ‘The piano is playing the pianist, which is what I wanted to achieve'.
Harbisson's first color to voice performances were in collaboration with Iceland
ic singer and Amiina
violinist María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (wife of Sigur Rós
keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson
), in their performances María used a computer and a microphone to sing the microtonal color frequencies that Harbisson used while creating live paintings on stage. Their first performances were in 2004 at Ariel Centre (Totnes, UK) and at Plymouth Guildhall (UK) in 2005.
Since 2008 Harbisson has been collaborating and performing with Catalan artist and musician Pau Riba with whom he shares the same interest in cyborgs They first performed in 2008 at Sala Luz de Gas (Barcelona), followed by other performances in Barcelona, Girona and Mataró.
One of their recent projects is Avigram (Avi- Latin: bird, -gram Greek: something written, drawn or recorded) a structure of 12 strings, one string for each semitone in an octave, installed on a roof of a farm. The installation is being recorded 24 hours a day and a melody is being created depending on which strings birds decide to rest on.
In 2010, Moon Ribas and Neil Harbisson's The Sound of the Orange Tree won the Stage Creation Award, awarded annually by IMAC Mataró
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
raised, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
born artist, musician and performer best known for his self-extended ability to hear colours. In 2004 he became the first person in the world to wear an eyeborg
Eyeborg
An eyeborg or eye-borg is a cybernetic body apparatus which typically fits on the wearer's head, and is designed to allow people to perceive color through sound waves. It is mostly used by blind people or by people with visual impairments such as color blindness or achromatopsia...
. The inclusion of the eyeborg on his passport photo has been claimed by some to be official recognition of Harbisson as a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
. Color and the use of technology as an extension of the performer, and not as part of the performance, are the central themes in Harbisson's work. In 2010, he founded the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization to help humans become cyborgs.
Early life
Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsiaAchromatopsia
Achromatopsia , is a medical syndrome that exhibits symptoms relating to at least five separate individual disorders. Although the term may refer to acquired disorders such as color agnosia and cerebral achromatopsia, it typically refers to an autosomal recessive congenital color vision disorder,...
, a condition that only allows him to see in black and white. He grew up in Mataró (Spain) where he studied music, dance and drama at various schools. He began to compose piano pieces at the age of 11. At school, classmates thought he was just being lazy every time he asked one of them to pass the red paint in an art class, or pick out a blue pen. He dressed exclusively in black and white. "What was the point in wearing something I couldn't appreciate?" he asks. At the age of 16 he started studying Fine Art at Institut Alexandre Satorras, where he was given special permission to use only black, white and gray colors in his works. Harbisson's early works are all in black and white.
In May 2001, he gained media attention in Spain after climbing on a tree to save three trees from being cut in the center of Mataró
Mataró
Mataró is the capital and largest city of the comarca of the Maresme, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia Autonomous Community, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, to the north-east of Barcelona. , it...
. Harbisson lived on the tree for several days, and was supported by over 3,000 people who signed a petition to maintain the trees. After days of protest, the city hall announced the trees would not be cut.
Harbisson moved to Ireland in September 2001 to finish his piano studies at Dublin's "Walton's New School of Music". In 2002 he moved to England to study Music Composition at Dartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts was a specialist arts institution near Totnes, Devon, South West England, it specialized in post-dramatic theatre, music, choreography, Performance Writing and visual performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. In addition to this,...
.
The Eyeborg
In October 2003 in his second year at Dartington College of ArtsDartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts was a specialist arts institution near Totnes, Devon, South West England, it specialized in post-dramatic theatre, music, choreography, Performance Writing and visual performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. In addition to this,...
, Harbisson attended a lecture on cybernetics, particularly on sensory extensions via cybernetics, given by Adam Montandon, a Plymouth University
University of Plymouth
Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
student. Neil found this of immense interest and at the end of the lecture he went up to Adam to explain his condition. From that moment they started working on the eyeborg project.
The eyeborg works with a head mounted camera that picks up the colors directly in front of a person, and converts them in real-time into sound waves.
Neil memorised the frequencies related to each colour: high frequency hues are high-pitched, while low frequency hues sound bolder. In Vienna, they co-presented their Eyeborg project, one of more than 400 entries from 29 different countries, and won the Europrix Award in Content Tools and Interface Design (2004), as well as the Innovation Award (Submerge, Bristol 2004).
In 2007, while hitch-hiking around Europe, Harbisson met Peter Kese in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, a software developer from Kranj
Kranj
' is the third largest municipality and fourth largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 54,500 . It is located approximately 20 km north-west of Ljubljana...
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. Kese offered to develop the eyeborg even further so that Harbisson could perceive color saturation and not only color hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
s. After a few weeks he had developed a new eyeborg model that allowed Harbisson to perceive up to 360 different hues through microtones and saturation through different volume levels.
Matias Lizana, a student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya is currently developing the eyeborg into a small chip as part of his final year project. The new chip will allow Harbisson to hear colours in stereo and to implant the eyeborg in his forehead.
Cyborg status
In 2004, Harbisson was not allowed to renew his UK passport because his passport photo was rejected. The passport office would not allow Harbisson to appear with electronic equipment on his head. Harbisson wrote back to them insisting that the eyeborg should be considered part of his body as he had become a cyborg. Letters from his doctor, friends and his college were sent to the passport office to give him support. After weeks of correspondence Harbisson's prosthetic device was included. Harbisson states that he became a cyborg when the union between his organism and cybernetics created new neuronal tissue in his brain that allowed him to perceive color through a new sense: "It's not the union between the eyeborg and my head what converts me into a cyborg but the union between the software and my brain".Cyborg Foundation
In 2010, Neil Harbisson and Moon Ribas created the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization to help humans become cyborgs. The foundation was created as a response to the growing amount of letters and emails received from people around the world interested in becoming a cyborg. The foundation's main aims are to extend human senses and abilities by creating and applying cybernetic extensions to the body, to promote the use of cybernetics in cultural events and to defend cyborg rights. In 2010, the foundation, based in MataróMataró
Mataró is the capital and largest city of the comarca of the Maresme, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia Autonomous Community, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, to the north-east of Barcelona. , it...
(Barcelona), was the overall winner of the Cre@tic Awards, organized by Tecnocampus Mataró.
Sonochromatism
Harbisson uses the terms sonochromatism or sonochromatopsia (Latin: sono-, sound + Greek: chromat-, color + Greek: -opsia, visual condition) to define his new condition. He explains that achromatopsia can no longer define his condition because achromatopsics can not perceive nor distinguish colors. He also explains that synesthesiaSynesthesia
Synesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
does not define his condition accurately because the relation between color and sound varies depending on each person, whereas sonochromatopsia is an extra sense that relates color to sound objectively and equally to everyone.
Harbisson's Sonochromatic Scales
Harbisson's Sonochromatic Music Scale (2003) is a microtonal and logarithmicLogarithmic
Logarithmic can refer to:* Logarithm, a transcendental function in mathematics* Logarithmic scale, the use of the logarithmic function to describe measurements* Logarithmic growth* Logarithmic distribution, a discrete probability distribution...
scale with 360 notes in an octave. Each note corresponds to a specific degree of the color wheel
Color wheel
A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle that shows relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors, etc....
. The scale was introduced to the first eyeborg
Eyeborg
An eyeborg or eye-borg is a cybernetic body apparatus which typically fits on the wearer's head, and is designed to allow people to perceive color through sound waves. It is mostly used by blind people or by people with visual impairments such as color blindness or achromatopsia...
in 2004.
Harbisson's Pure Sonochromatic Scale (2005) is a non-logarithmic scale based on the transposition
Transposition
Transposition may refer to:Mathematics* Transposition , a permutation which exchanges two elements and keeps all others fixed* Transposition, producing the transpose of a matrix AT, which is computed by swapping columns for rows in the matrix AGames* Transposition , different moves or a different...
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.
Art
Harbisson's visual works focus on the relationship between color and sound, and on the relationship between humans and color. Harbisson's main works have been exhibited at the Bankside GalleryBankside Gallery
The Bankside Gallery is an art gallery in Bankside, South London, England. It is just to the west of the much larger Tate Modern gallery.The gallery is home to the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. The members of these societies follow a 200 year old tradition...
(London), at the Museumsquartier
Museumsquartier
The Museumsquartier is a 60,000 m² large area in the 7th district of the city of Vienna, Austria; it is the eighth largest cultural area in the world. The Museumsquartier contains Baroque buildings as well as Modern architecture by the architects Laurids and Manfred Ortner . The renovation of the...
(Vienna), at the Royal College of Art Gallery (London), at Can Manyé (Alella
Alella
Alella is a village in the comarca of Maresme inCatalunya, Spain. It is situated on the south-west side of the granite Litoral range, just by the sea. The town is known for...
), at Galeria Tramart (Barcelona) and at Venice's Giudecca 795 Contemporary Art Gallery during the 54th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
.
In 2007 Harbisson started hitch-hiking around Europe to find the main colors of capital cities, visiting more than 50 countries as well as travelling around Britain. He scanned each capital until he was able represent each city with two main hues. In Monaco, it was azure and salmon pink; in Bratislava it was yellow and turquoise; and in Andorra it was dark green and fuchsia. Under the title Capital Colors of Europe Harbisson has exhibited the colours of each capital in several European galleries including Spain, Andorra, UK, and Croatia.
The eyeborg not only allows him to perceive and paint in color but it also means that everyday sounds, such as ring tones or music, become associated with colours. Color Scores are a series of paintings where Harbisson transforms into color the first 100 notes of well-known musical pieces.
Sound Portraits are portraits of people that Harbisson creates by listening to the colors of faces. Each face creates a different micro tone chord depending on its colours. In order to create a sound portrait he needs to stand in front of the person and point his eyeborg at the different parts of the face, he then writes down the different notes on a special 360 lined manuscript paper. He explains that photographs can not be used to create these portraits as colors are not the same on pictures than live. Since 2005 he has created sound portraits of Prince Charles, Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies is a Catalan painter. He is one of the most famous European artists of his generation. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting...
, Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, Leonardo di Caprio, Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
and Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
among others.
Music
The piano has been Neil's instrument since he was a small child. He gravitated towards it quite naturally, since he hated even theexistence of color. ‘It was a black and white instrument, perfect for me.’
It was inevitable that his first performed composition as a cyborg was a marriage of paint and music. In Piano Concerto No. 1, Neil literally painted a Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
grand piano, using the color frequencies to produce notes. With his next composition, the Pianoborg Concerto, the piano was 'prepared', by attaching a computer to the underside, the sensor of the eyeborg being positioned above the keys. When a color was shown to the sensor, the computer picked up the frequency and relayed this to the piano, which then played the corresponding note. Neil said ‘The piano is playing the pianist, which is what I wanted to achieve'.
Harbisson's first color to voice performances were in collaboration with Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
ic singer and Amiina
Amiina
Amiina is an Icelandic band composed of Hildur Ársælsdóttir , Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir , Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir , and Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir . They frequently perform live and in the studio along with Sigur Rós...
violinist María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (wife of Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson
Kjartan Sveinsson
Kjartan "Kjarri" Sveinsson is a keyboardist of the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. He joined the band in 1998. Being something of a multi-instrumentalist, he has also played such instruments as the flute, tin whistle, oboe and even the banjo, as well as many of the unorthodox instruments that...
), in their performances María used a computer and a microphone to sing the microtonal color frequencies that Harbisson used while creating live paintings on stage. Their first performances were in 2004 at Ariel Centre (Totnes, UK) and at Plymouth Guildhall (UK) in 2005.
Since 2008 Harbisson has been collaborating and performing with Catalan artist and musician Pau Riba with whom he shares the same interest in cyborgs They first performed in 2008 at Sala Luz de Gas (Barcelona), followed by other performances in Barcelona, Girona and Mataró.
One of their recent projects is Avigram (Avi- Latin: bird, -gram Greek: something written, drawn or recorded) a structure of 12 strings, one string for each semitone in an octave, installed on a roof of a farm. The installation is being recorded 24 hours a day and a melody is being created depending on which strings birds decide to rest on.
Devised Theatre
Harbisson has collaborated extensively with Spanish choreographer Moon Ribas in a series of devised theatre and dance performances. Works such as Opus No.1, premiered at London’s BAC Theatre in 2007, and The Sound of the Orange Tree, premiered at Barcelona's Antic Teatre in 2011, combine the use of cybernetics, colour and movement on stage and explore the relationship between colour and humans.In 2010, Moon Ribas and Neil Harbisson's The Sound of the Orange Tree won the Stage Creation Award, awarded annually by IMAC Mataró
External links
- Eyeborg Website Eyeborg chip development site