‘Meeting a real-life cyborg was gobsmacking’

For the past 20 years, self-declared "cyborg artist" Neil Harbisson has provoked debate with his "eyeborg" - a surgically attached antenna. Harbisson, who grew up in Barcelona, is colour blind, having been born with the rare condition achromatopsia, which affects one in 33,000 people. This means he sees in what he calls "greyscale" - only black, white and shades of grey. But he decided to have surgery in 2004 which changed his life - and his senses - attaching an antennae to the back of his head, which transforms light waves into sounds. When film director Carey Born came across Harbisson, classed by Guinness World Records as "the first officially recognised 'cyborg'," she was "gobsmacked and astonished". Her next move was to meet him, and then make a film about him - Cyborg: A Documentary. It explores how he navigates his life, along with effects and implications of his unusual surgical procedure. "The reason he did it was not to substitute the sense that he was lacking - it was in order to create an enhancement," Born tells the BBC. "So that was really the main hook that I thought was fascinating."

As a student, Harbisson had met Plymouth University cybernetics expert Adam Montandon, who enabled him to "hear" colour using headphones, a webcam and laptop - transforming light waves into sounds. Harbisson seized on this experience, but wanted more, by merging the technology with his own body - something Spain's bioethical committees repeatedly rejected. He eventually persuaded anonymous doctors to operate, removing part of the back of his skull so the antennae could be implanted and the bone could then grow over it. Harbisson, who describes himself as a "cyborg artist", has said: "I don't feel like I'm using technology, I feel like I am technology." The term cyborg refers to a being with human and machine elements, giving them enhanced abilities. Cyborgs are already a feature of popular culture and sci-fi, appearing in TV series like Doctor Who, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and films including Terminator and Robocop.