On this week’s show, we’ll be speaking to Neil Harbisson, the world’s first recognized cyborg. He has the ability to hear colours and to perceive them outside the ability of human vision and is also the first man in the world to wear an eyeborg.

Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a condition that only allowed him to see in black and white. At the age of sixteen, he decided he wanted to attend art school and was given special permission to only use black, white and grey colours and often dressed similarly.

He gained recognition in his hometown of Mataró, Spain after protesting the felling of trees near his home in which he lived for three days.

In 2003, Harbisson met Adam Montandon, a Plymouth University student who was giving a talk on cybernetics at the university. They decided to start a project together developing the eyeborg, a device with the ability to change colour frequencies and convert them to sounds. Neil memorised the frequencies related to each colour and decided to permanently attach the eyeborg to his head. Harbisson could now perceive up to 360 different colour hues.

Unfortunately, in May 2011 police broke the device as they believed he was filming them during a protest in Barcelona.

Even in Harbisson’s passport photo, he is wearing his eyeborg as it was deemed to be an official part of him and his daily life and it is for this reason that he is recognised as the only official human cyborg. 

Neil is in town for this weekend’s UCD Science Expression festival and will be live in studio from 10am on Saturday