5 People with Sensory Enhancements
From feeling the magnetic feild of the planet to hearing wifi, discover the people who have augmented their perception with a new sense.
In a previous blog we explored Sensory Augmentation technology — a way to expand our perception of the world by merging with technology, giving us added sensory information about the world around us. Here are 5 people who have designed and created their own technology to do just that!
LIVIU BABITZ
Liviu Babitz is the co-founder and CEO of CyborgNest, a neurotech sensory enhancement company that creates technology which expands your sensory experience of the world. In 2017, Babitz pioneered the company’s ground breaking device, NorthSense, a miniaturized circuit board with over 200 components, which was permanently anchored to the body and connected the wearer to the magnetic field of the planet. The device vibrates when he faces magnetic north giving him a sense that some animals have — magnetoreception — enhancing Babitz sense of orientation and adding new sensory information to his experiences.
“It’s all about curiosity and in what ways we can think or create that we never did before.” — Liviu Babitz
The added sense created more complex mental maps of the areas Babitz travelled, allowing him to connect the direction of his desk at home with the walk to his son’s school. BBC put his new navigational abilities to the test by blindfolding him, spinning him around and asking him to return to his place of origin, with great success! Particularly compared to unenhanced participants who were ‘useless’. As well as improving navigation the device gave Babitz and other wearers surprising effects such as making memories more vivid when the device vibrates, and it enhanced the experience of other tasks such as piano playing. The device gained acclaim in the scientific community and the media and sold out within months!
NEIL HARBISSON
A well-known user of Sensory Augmentation technology is artist Neil Harbisson, who was the first person to be recognised legally as a ‘cyborg’ by a government. Harbisson has achromatopsia, or colour blindness, which drove him to develop the Eyeborg which allows him to hear colours. Inspired by biohacking techniques Harbisson, with product designer and cybernetics expert Adam Montagnon, first created a non-invasive device which uses a camera and microcomputer to code electromagnetic light waves into sound frequencies (musical notes) which are played through headphones.
Later, an anonymous surgeon (who does not wish to be named due to the bioethical implications of the procedure) attached the device to his skull, which enables the sound to be transmitted through bone conduction, with an antenna that can be directed towards the desired input source. The input range of the device is expanded to include wavelengths of light that are outside of a humans’ visual spectrum, allowing Harbisson to perceive infrared and ultraviolet light, and can also receive sound information directly via the internet. In his TED talk Harbisson explains how it has changed his perceptions and behaviours, such as: dressing himself not by what ‘looks good’ but by what ‘sounds good’; arranging his food to eat his favourite song; and defining beauty by who he thinks sounds beautiful.
MOON RIBAS
Moon Ribas is a Catalonian dancer and cyborg artist who had implants in her feet which allowed her to feel earthquakes anywhere in the world — a ‘seismic sense’. As a dancer she creates performances to the real-time earthquakes she feels in her body, as a ‘duet between the earth and myself, the earth is the choreographer and I am just interpreting the data she gives me’. Her seismic sense also extends into space allowing her to feel moonquakes! After 7 years of having the implants she decided to take them out so that she can experiment with other connections. Having had the sense for so long she is now experiencing what it’s like to lose a sense, or a limb, worrying that now she might be a ‘phantom cyborg’ — ‘I’ve started to experience how it feels to lack a cybernetic sense and I’m now feeling phantom earthquakes. How long will these last?’
Ribas and Harbisson have also been experimenting with other body augmentations such as their ‘Transcendental communication system’. By clicking their teeth together in morse code they can communicate with each other, thanks to implanted teeth which transfer the messages via bluetooth — a ‘bluetooth tooth’. With all these modifications Ribas says that in becoming Cyborg she doesn’t feel closer to machines or robots, but actually closer to nature and animals who have similar senses
“I feel like I have two heartbeats now, my own and the earth beat”
As avid promoters of Sensory Augmentation and Human Enhancement Harbisson and Ribas created the Cyborg Foundation to promote the development of technologies which expand our senses.
MANEL MUNOZ
Manel Munoz — a founder of the Transpecies Society (with Moon and Neil) has recently implanted two ‘fins’ on his head which allows him to ‘hear’ the weather. The chip inside sends him the sound of weather — atmospheric pressure, humidity, and changes in temperature — via bone conduction through his skull. The Artificial Sense (AS) gives him the atmospheric information which his brain then learns to interpret to forecast the weather — when weather is intense his brain is intense, when it is calm he is calm. Although this implanted augmentation is risky, he says some sports also come with risk and “this is an art that has a risk”, but designing himself is more exciting than the risk.
For Munoz these artificial senses allow him to perceive a Revealed Reality (RR) — as opposed to an Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) — as they reveal aspects of the environment that are always there but that our biology restricts us from experiencing. Munoz advocates for trans-species identities saying that he does not feel 100% human. He feels his AS brings him closer to nature and aims to show the world that people and the planet are the same thing with an inextricable bond. Popping the ‘anthropocentric bubble’ (removing humans from the top of the natural hierarchy) will hopefully increase empathy for the world around us.
FRANK SWAIN
Frank Swain is a science writer who, in 2014, partnered with sound artist Daneil Jones to create a hearing aid which allowed him to hear wifi. Swain has been going deaf since his 20’s so took this as an opportunity to open up his auditory perception to include new information. Wifi signals surround us and enable our hyper-connected daily life — though they are pervasive they are usually invisible. The pair translated the router name, signal strength, encryption and distance in sonic parameters in order to create a soundscape which overlays Swain’s current auditory perception. This needed to be complex enough to mimic the extensive digital infrastructure, but unobtrusive enough not to be a distraction — not an easy task!
‘distant signals click and pop like hits on a Geiger counter, while the strongest bleat their network ID in a looped melody’
Phantom Terrains maps and visualises Swain’s paths through the environment for the few months he wore it, showing wifi sources, their strength and even the blocking effects of large buildings. The project can be seen as a critical piece, exposing the ubiquitous nature of the digital world around us, but it can also provide inspiration for future sensory technologies. What other information could he receive? As a networked tool could these work similar to a Google-Glass, providing the wearer with continuous information that could reshape how we interact with the world?
To enhance your own experience with a Cyborg Orientation Sense see CyborgNests’ new device — Sentero here ->
If you can think of other people who have sensory enhancements please comment below!
Discover more: cyborgnest.net | lesleyanndaly.com
