What's in those... ears?
There is an implant that is touching the bone and another plate that is touching the chip that vibrates the flap.
Do you have it implanted in your skull?
The fins are not implanted, but installed: in contact with implants that are transcutaneous...
They hurt?
They don't hurt. They increase my connection with the environment. They are a transdermal implant and simply act as a bridge to direct the vibration that the fin makes in the skull to the skin layer.
What are those fins made of?
On the outside they are made of silicone and inside they have 3D printed electronics, which include sensors for atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity.
How do they convey that information to you?
They work by continuously reading the temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure around me and it is translated into a vibration that is actually a sound...
Sounds? Can you hear it?
That vibration goes to the implant, which touches the bone and becomes sound in my mind. It allows me to listen to time and in the end it is like a soundscape that is transformed with the changes in the atmospheric conditions around me.
How does that perception sound?
It's like a bubble noise. If the humidity increases, the bubbles I hear grow. If the temperature increases, the bubbles sound higher pitched, and if the pressure increases, the volume increases.
Night and day?
Well, my battery dies and I have to recharge it.
Can you take a vacation from the fins once in a while?
If I have to sleep eight hours, I uninstall them, because they are still not designed to sleep or to do everyday things comfortably.
Can they be improved?
Sure, that's why I'm still designing them. I want to make them smaller: the technology will be more compact and the implant will be more in the bone, because it is a hassle to have to insert and remove an organ. It is more comfortable to integrate it.
As?
When you load the fins at the end it's like feeding your artificial body; I feed my organic body with food and drink and the artificial one with electricity. And there will be a time when you can possibly recharge your artificial organs via locomotive power, but we're not at this point.
Who installed that prosthesis?
Eizo Mamiya in his Noon studio, in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo.
Weren't you afraid of having surgery there?
Neil Harbisson accompanied me to Japan...
Pioneering cyborg: was in La Contra.
I tried to perform the implants in Barcelona, but no one dared.
Because?
The body modifier community is very small here and they were afraid that the vibration technology would be infected, because it is an always open implant.
It was painful?
It's not a big incision: it was quick, barely half an hour, and they didn't sleep on me.
Sort of like a tattoo?
Yes, but for me it is a practical prosthesis, not an aesthetic one; and when designing it I discovered that it had to be metallic to better conduct the vibration.
Do you want to make art, technology, denounce...?
I want to explore the limits of what we call human by adding organs inspired by non-human species, so with Neal we call it the transspecies cyborg movement. And... yes, it's rebellious.
Against whom?
Against anthropocentrism, to bring us closer to other species, non-humans; because we are locking ourselves in our bubble and despising other animals, disconnecting from the planet.
How do the fins connect to it?
They connect me with the rain and the bottom of the sea due to their bubble sounds that respond to atmospheric changes.
Does it change your perception of the sea?
It is like being in a sea of invisible air, but full of matter. It is art, but not invention, but ultra-perception. And revelation.
Where is the revelation?
The prosthesis that I have designed reveals what is happening around you that you could not perceive with your biological organs alone.
What has inspired you?
That's what cyborg art is about: designing your perception of reality – without being augmented or virtual – through new senses that reveal it to your cyborg body.
