The artist who hears colour: World's only recognised cyborg uses headmounted camera to convert hue to sound

A colour-blind artist has become the world's first government-recognised cyborg with a head-mounted device that translates colour to sound. Neil Harbisson, 29, has conquered achromatopsia, a condition that only allows him to see in black and white, with a gadget that interprets colours as different notes on a scale. He wears the device, dubbed an eyeborg, wherever he goes and in 2004 he secured official recognition from the UK Identity and Passport Service that it was part of his body. Mr Harbisson told the BBC: 'It looks like an antenna that comes out from my head and goes up to the front of my face. 'At the back of my head there's a chip which transforms the light waves into sound, and I hear the colours, not through my ears but through my bone. 'At the beginning I had some strong headaches because of the constant input of sound, but after five weeks my brain adapted to it, and I started to relate music and real sound to colour.' Born in Britain but raised in Catalonia, Mr Harbisson began studying fine art at the age of 16, after already training in music, dance and drama. Because of his disability, he was given a special dispensation to work only in greyscale, but developed a deep interest in the relationship between colour and sound. However, it wasn't until Mr Harbisson moved to England in 2002 to study Music Composition at Dartington College of Arts that he was able to make use of the concept. During his second year at the college he attended a lecture on cybernetics, particularly on sensory extensions, given by Adam Montandon. At the end of the lecture Mr Harbisson approached Mr Montandon to explain his disability, who agreed to make him a cybernetic extension to overcome it. The eyeborg works via a head-mounted camera connected to a computer that picks up the colours directly in front of Mr Harbisson and converts them into sound waves. For the device to work, Mr Harbisson first had to memorise the frequencies which related to each colour: high frequency hues are high-pitched, while low frequency hues sound bolder. Red is the lowest frequency, with a note that is inbetween F and F sharp, and violet is the highest frequency, with a note hovering around C. Mr Harbisson says the eyeborg has completely changed the way that he perceives art, giving him a world in which colour and sound are the same thing.

Human enhancement refers to any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means. The term is sometimes applied to the use of technological means to select or alter human characteristics and capacities, whether or not the alteration results in characteristics and capacities that lie beyond the existing human range. Here, the test is whether the technology is used for non-therapeutic purposes. Some bioethicists restrict the term to the non-therapeutic application of specific technologies neuro-, cyber-, gene-, and nano-technologies to human biology.

Human enhancement technologies (HET) are techniques that can be used not simply for treating illness and disability, but also for enhancing human characteristics and capacities. In some circles, the expression "human enhancement technologies" is synonymous with emerging technologies or converging technologies. In other circles, the expression "human enhancement" is roughly synonymous with human genetic engineering, it is used most often to refer to the general application of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC) to improve human performance.