The Internet will become part of our DNA

Marina Anciperova, T&PIn the head of the artist Neil Harbisson, who suffers from color blindness, there is an implanted antenna that converts the colors surrounding him into sounds.

He has been living with this antenna for ten years and does not turn it off even when he goes to sleep. T&P met with the artist at Geek Rispis and asked him about life with an implant and a new perception of beauty, and also found out what the future holds for humanity, and whether a cyborg can become president.

– When you meet people, do you explain anything about yourself after saying "hello"?

– No, never. If they ask, I explain, but otherwise I don't.

– In what key are you dressed today?

– C major.

– And me?

– F sharp.

– Now you probably think completely different things are beautiful?

– Yes, beauty is very subjective, there are no rules that would define what it is. It depends on many things, and color, of course, is one of them. When I look at something, I see a combination of elements that create beauty in my mind – including the sound of color. Something seems more or less harmonious in all respects, and sometimes it happens that something ugly sounds very beautiful. And vice versa. And sometimes visually beautiful things can also sound great – and it's unforgettable.

– You told me that going to the supermarket is now an adventure for you…

– Let's be honest: I wasn't really interested in supermarkets before, but now it's a completely new musical experience. It's almost like going to concerts. All objects are colored differently, and when I walk among them, I hear so many sounds! Supermarkets are usually also well built, they have perfect white lighting, so that pure colors surround you from all sides. You are surrounded by music – in a very unusual way. Especially cleaning products – it's just fantastic, they have incredibly loud colors.

– What does it look like, a symphony?

– More like electronic music, and each department will definitely have its own melodies.

– How do you generally live with your device?

– Other people probably think it's an external device, but I feel like it's a part of me. The programs and the brain have already merged, and I don't feel the difference between the antenna and other parts of my body. It's like a tooth or a nose. You see, I don't wear it. I don't take it off or turn it off, I live with it all the time.

– How have you changed during the time that you live with the antenna?

– The older I get, the sharper my feelings become – before that, I used to think that the older you are, the worse you see and hear. And with cybernetics, it's the opposite. So now I look at aging positively. I feel a closer connection with space – I can connect to a space satellite via wi-fi or bluetooth and see colors in images from space. It has changed me a lot and how I perceive life now.

– So, it turns out that you can travel while staying in place?

–That's right. I can lie in bed and explore space. Now I connect whenever I want, but next year I'm going to make this connection with space permanent. So I will have stereo vision – for the perception of colors on Earth and for space.

– Is it distracting?

– Yes, very much. Therefore, I need to train when I connect to space, and I need to train and study a lot to have a permanent connection with it. I want this connection to be maintained even in sleep.

– So you don't turn off your device when you go to sleep? Do you have color dreams?

– There is no switch here. Yes, when I sleep, I hear different colors all the time.

– How do you see our future?

– I think our century is a transitional one. The view on technology is changing: first it was external devices, now it's wearable technology, and soon we will be able to see how wearable technology becomes part of the body. Wearable technologies are becoming more and more familiar now, and in the 2020s and 2030s we will not just wear technology, we will become technology ourselves. After that, people will add more and more new sensors, new body parts, and genetically change themselves. Instead of using cybernetics, we will change our genes. We will be able to see in the ultraviolet range by changing something in our genes instead of adding new sensors. An internet connection will become part of your DNA, and you won't need to be constantly connected to the Network.

– What ethical issues will we face?

– Oh, there will be many of them. There is a lot of talk today about where the ethical boundaries are. I think that they will be different for each person, but it will be difficult for society to define these boundaries for everyone. There will probably be many different laws in different countries, and some countries will be more liberal, they will have fewer restrictions.

I think that in the end there will be two types of people – one will live in space, and the other on Earth. People who want to live in space will have to change their genes, otherwise they simply will not be able to survive in these conditions. And other people will remain one hundred percent organic and will live on Earth.

– Do you think that the conquest of space is a stage of natural human evolution?

– Yes, life began in the water: at first we lived in the water and tried to escape from the water. Then we started living on the ground, in trees – and tried to escape from them too, started living on the ground. And then we started flying, and now we live in the sky. The next step is to leave the sky and start living in space. People are always trying to escape from their natural context, we have this innate tendency to study what is on the other side.

But if we want to live in space, we will have to change our body. In the same way that we have been changing our body for thousands of years to get out of the water to land through evolution. Then we needed to find a way to breathe – and now we need to figure out how to breathe in space. And we will do it faster than before: unlike natural evolution, we can now control changes in our body.

– It turns out that the future is beautiful?

- Yes. And the past, and everything in the world. And the present, too – if you constantly study reality, life will never be boring: you find new things to study all the time. Everything is delicious.

– This is exactly the most interesting thing in humanity – the constant thirst to explore something new.

– Yes, the constant need to explore and feel. This is what makes us alive. That's why people travel so much today. But you might as well stay put, explore your own body, your own experience of life. Sensors make reality look different – and you can explore a new reality with new sensors implanted in the body.

– Don't you think that humanity might be a little scared by such a prospect? Movies teach us that technology is dangerous, even in Doctor Who they constantly show how cybermen think only about how to make everyone else Cybermen.

– You need to ignore science fiction. I do not know why this happens, but everything that science fiction tells about comes out very negatively. Especially in the twentieth century. Writers liked to scare people, and people liked to live with it. There was a lot of fiction in the religion of the past, and in the fiction that tells us about the future, there is also enough of it. But reality is not like that, although for some reason people feel safer if they are placed between two fantastic worlds.

Everything around, if desired, can be seen in a negative light. A knife may be designed to cut bread, but it might as well be used to kill people. A mobile phone can be used for communication, but it can also be successfully used to activate bombs. But combining man and technology... I can't even imagine how it can be used to harm someone, it's just a study of reality. But yes, you're right, fear is a very common place in this context.

With the help of my antenna, I can process information the way, for example, dolphins do. I share with them the feeling of vibration, and I understand how they hear. I see ultraviolet light in the same way as bees, which can recognize it. Cats sometimes see infrared rays, and now I can do it too, and I understand why sometimes they look strangely somewhere in space. I understand animals much better.

– How has your art changed? Have you become an art project yourself?

– Yes, I see myself as an art, even a whole art movement. I believe that what I am doing is actually the beginning of an important art movement in which artists will create their own feelings and express themselves through these feelings.

– And as for the audience – how to show this art to those who do not have such sensors?

– All our feelings are different: you can't know for sure about any person whether his blue is like yours. We all think that the sky is blue, but no one really knows what it is. Perception is a mystery. When it comes to art, it's perfectly normal that I can see something that you can't. When you listen to Mozart, you may be hearing something completely different.

– Is there a technology that you dream about, that you especially expect from the future?

– If we had 3D printers on different planets, we could print ourselves on each planet. For example, if such a printer were installed on Mars, you could print yourself on Mars, and use the Internet to connect to this body and wander around Mars in your own body. And the Internet would transmit your feelings to you – that is, you would be connected to your own body via the Internet. I'd like to see it.

– You said you had difficulties with your passport: you became the first person who managed to defend the right to be photographed with a technological device for a passport. What else are you fighting for? Do cyborgs need their own lawyers?

– The antenna is a part of my body, and I want it to be visible in my passport. We want the government to start perceiving implanted gadgets as parts of our body, not as technologies. I insist on the right of cyborgs to perform operations – because now the ethics committee does not recognize this. Many operations like mine were done in basements and illegally. This has to change. This is the same right that transgender people fought for in the 1950s and 1960s. In the middle of the twentieth century, the ethics committee said that sex reassignment surgery was unethical, unnecessary and basically useless. No one has done this in hospitals. I don't know if they do it now in Russia, but in many countries it is now allowed. So I think that in the future they will also allow cyber operations. Although I am not sure that Russia will accept it.

– And what will happen next, the cyborg party in parliament? Is the president a cyborg?

– Yes, and we can see the first steps. In the USA, there is the first transhumanist party that defends the same interests that we are fighting for. A lot is going on. Of course, there will definitely be a cyborg president. First there will be more female presidents, then, probably, a transgender president, and then a cyborg.

– When will it happen, sometime in 2050?

– I think much earlier. Cyborgs can be very different, and sometimes even you can not immediately understand that you are facing a cyborg. Probably next year there will be the first female president in the United States, Hillary Clinton, in the 2020s, there may be a transsexual... It's hard to predict, maybe it will happen a little later. But it would be very interesting.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru

30.06.2015