Forget all those cartoons and movies about cyborgs you have ever watched. Their authors seem to believe for some reason that a cyborg must wear a robot-like costume and have a strange small red bulb instead of one eye. No, no, and no!
If you ask Google to show you the world’s first officially recognized living cyborg, you will see a nice young man, very slim, not that tall, with fair hair and absolutely human greenish eyes, wearing probably a pink jacket with a blue T-shirt and yellow trousers. Voila, meet Neil Harbisson. You are going to write your college paper about this man and here is why it will stand out!
Who Is Neil Harbisson and Why Should I Write My Essay About Him?
No, “cyborg” is not Neil’s nickname. It’s his official status, if we can call it like this. Besides, nowadays he’s one of the world’s most famous and creative artists. As you know, cyborgs are living beings that have both biological, or organic, and biomechatronic body parts. Simply put, they could be considered half people half robots.
Yet, Neil Harbisson has only one biomechatronic part that was implanted in his skull more than ten years ago. It is a specially designed antenna that allows him to hear… colors. No, there are no typos in that sentence. Neil has to listen to colors of the surrounding world simply because he cannot see them.
If you have ever watched an old film in black and white, you can partially imagine the pictures he used to see before his operation. Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia. This eyesight disorder is also known as color blindness. So, everything he would look at was gray for him.
However, such problem could not hinder him from studying arts and music at Darlington College of Arts, the UK, where he once met Adam Montandon. The budding inventor actually helped Neil fight the disorder and extend his capabilities. In his project Adam presented a special sensor which could transform color frequencies into sound ones. Neil got interested in the invention and invited Adam to cooperate with him.
In 2004 the artist was the first person to successfully undergo the complex operation, after which the so-called Eyeborg antenna was osseointegrated (implanted) into his skull, allowing him to distinguish various colors by the way they sound to him. By the way, he can hear even ultraviolet and infrared colors, which a human eye cannot see.
Quite an amazing figure, isn’t he? That is why our online paper writing service team decided to shed light on Neil Harbisson’s personality and prove that he is a truly good role model for us and for the generations coming.
What to Write About Neil’s Career and Achievements?
So, what can such person as Neil Harbisson do for living? Now, as for him colors have turned into sounds and sounds have turned into colors, he creates amazing pieces of art. By the way, here I mean painting and music. Not to mention the fact that he also gives talks sometimes and published his first book in 2009.
What is so special about his works? Believe me or not, once he gave a piano concert and played the frequencies of the colors in which he had painted the instrument. This is actually a wonderful reason to distract yourself from the process of essay writing for a while and google Neil’s concert. It’s something out of this world, literally, especially when you realize that you are hearing colors.
Continuing the list of his music achievements, I cannot but mention his collection of audio files which were composed from the natural colors of famous people’s faces. From these audios you could learn how Prince Charles, James Cameron, or Leonardo DiCaprio sound.
If we are talking about Harbisson’s paintings, you should know that in them you can see, well, his favorite songs or speeches delivered by such figures as Adolf Hitler or Martin Luther King. Besides, after traveling across Europe, he represented each of the 50 capitals he visited with only two hues. For example, Monaco sounded salmon pink and azure.
In 2010 together with Moon Ribas, a modern artist who can feel earthquakes with a special sensor in her elbow, he also established the Cyborg Foundation. The main aim of this non-profit organization is to promote the use of cybernetics and support people who want to become cyborgs for different reasons.
In the end, you could mention Harbisson’s Cyborg Project. More info can be found on its official website.
So, you can see that the list of Neil’s achievements is quite impressive, given the fact that he is 32 years old. Looks like your essay is going to be really superb!
What to Say in the Conclusion of My Essay?
Before you start writing your paper, I do recommend you watching at least one Neil’s interview or talk. Just so you could see what a positive and creative guy he is. He even says that he does benefit from viewing the world in gray color, as he can perceive shapes better.
Back to the conclusion for your paper, you could quote two ideas of his. Firstly, in one of his interviews he said that he did not consider his abilities to hear colors or to paint sounds as something superhero or supernatural. He simply managed to find out more about himself and, consequently, extend his human capacities with the help of technology. He took his “malfunction” as an opportunity to develop both his body and personality. And he did succeed!
Secondly, he claims that we should invent more gadgets and apps which would upgrade our own natural abilities instead of producing absolutely useless or even cruel things. Humans do not know so much about themselves, so today we should orient science and technology to discovering more about our own species and improving our lifestyles.