Neil Harbisson

In 2004, artist Neil Harbisson, who suffers from achromatopsia, was fitted with a Camera that allows him to perceive color through sound. His camera was featured on his passport picture, making him an official cyborg¹ He has since started putting videos up on YouTube that illustrate how he hears the world we see.  One of the videos that interested me is Sonochromatic Portrait #1.  In this video he explores the different sounds the colors on a person’s face produce.

Even if we want to by in to post-raciality, as humans we are different colors, and our experiences and histories are different as a result of that.  Technology as an area of study comes from a very specific political agenda that attempts to silence conversations on race by making them invisible even when they are there.  We see this replicated in the depictions of futures with cyborgs and androids.  As a society we are becoming more and more dependent on technological intervention.  For this reason I think it is important that as we start to bring conversations of race into the technological discourse, we also allow space to play with where we are locating human and technological hybridity.  It is also important that we continue to explore and question who has agency and through what means?

While this initial project focused on looking at race from a Black perspective, I would love to see how other races can be read into the narratives of android-cyborg-human relations.

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