Cyborgism is an art movement where artists create their own senses and body parts by merging cybernetics with their own organism. Cyborgism is the art of expressing ourselves through new senses or extended senses created by the union between cybernetics and the artist's body and mind.
The creation of one own's cybernetic organs is a form of sculpturing one's own body. The difference is that instead of sculpturing with stone, brass or wood, we are now sculpturing with bones, titanium and wires. Another difference is that the sculpture is alive and interactive. The artist is at the same time the artwork, and daily life becomes the performance. I don't have artificial body parts, I have artistic body parts.
The creation of one own's senses is a way of reshaping one's own mind. Our senses no longer need to be imprisoned, software can set them free. The use of software as an unlimited extension of our brain and senses aims for the cyborg effect. The moment when one stops noticing the difference between one's self and the software, the moment when cybernetics and organism become one.
I became a cyborg at night when I started to hear colours in my dreams. I had been permanently wearing a cybernetic antenna attached to my head for several months that allowed me to hear the colours around me through bone conduction. Hearing colour in my dreams was the moment when I stopped feeling the difference between my brain and the software. I started to conceive the antenna as a part of my body, as an organ. I no longer felt that I was using technology, I didn't feel that I was wearing technology, I felt that I had become technology.
Artists are the most potential group willing to explore the extension and modification of their own senses as their main focus is to use their senses and body to express themselves. Creativity is a reflection of our experiences, therefore the more we allow ourselves to feel and sense the more we'll be able to reflect. Cybernetics allows artists to express themselves through senses that might still not exist or through extensions of their existing senses.
I feel that my union with cybernetics has awakened all my other senses and has allowed me to explore creativity outside the limits of my natural perception. I can now create infrared art or ultraviolet paintings for example, artworks that are only be visible for some specific animals and insects or I can use my bone conduction sound input to compose music that only dolphins can hear, and by connecting my antenna to satellites I can hear extraterrestial colours and give space concerts.
Some might think that we might become less human if we modify ourselves but I believe there is nothing more human than doing that. Humans create humans and humans create technology. Merging humans with technology can only makes us more human. I strongly disagree with those who think that our union with technology will alienate ourselves from reality, from nature or from other livings. In my case, becoming technology doesn't make me feel closer to machines, or to robots, but quite the opposite. I now feel closer to nature, to space and to other forms of life. Having an antenna makes me feel closer to insects and other creatures that have antennae, hearing through bone conduction make me feel closer to dolphins and other marine species that perceive sound through their bones, having ultraviolet and infrared perception makes me feel closer to insects and mammals that perceive these colours, and connecting the antenna to satellites feels like having a third eye in space. I feel a stronger connection with nature now than I ever did before.
Technology can bring us back to nature.
This blog post is part of a series on the future of health and technology produced by the editors of HuffPost ImpactX in conjunction with the world premiere of the trailer for documentary 'Detected,' produced by Ironbound Films, in partnership with Cisco. The trailer will debut on March 16 at the SXSW Music and Film Festival in Austin, TX. For more information about 'Detected,' click here. To see all the other posts in the series, click here
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