What would a life with extra senses be like?
How would these extra senses help us understand the world, nature, outer space, each other better?
How could we not only use technology to achieve that, but become technology?
The world’s first government-recognised cyborg and cyborg activist Neil Harbisson is coming to São Paulo with his long-term collaborator, partner and choreographer Moon Ribas to work on a project that explores these questions and more during 6 days in September.
Neil and Moon founded The Cyborg Foundation in 2010, an international organization that aims to help humans become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgism as a social and artistic movement.
They believe that, in order to increase our survival possibilities on Earth, we have to either change the extraterrestrial environment or change ourselves physically. Becoming a cyborg opens up the possibility of having additional organs, so by merging ourselves with technology we can become the designers of our own body and perception.
Neil and Moon are artists above all: so more concerned about how humans - or the species that will evolve from humans – feel and behave than on technology itself. You have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with them, find out how they think and create, and in the process, expand your knowledge on the ways technology can relate to human body and mind and how we might be witnessing the start of our species’s renaissance.Â
In September, they will lead a group at Mesa&Cadeira to create a new application for Neil’s body.
What would a life with extra senses be like?
How would these extra senses help us understand the world, nature, outer space, each other better?
How could we not only use technology to achieve that, but become technology?
The world’s first government-recognised cyborg and cyborg activist Neil Harbisson is coming to São Paulo with his long-term collaborator, partner and choreographer Moon Ribas to work on a project that explores these questions and more during 6 days in September.
Neil and Moon founded The Cyborg Foundation in 2010, an international organization that aims to help humans become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgism as a social and artistic movement.
They believe that, in order to increase our survival possibilities on Earth, we have to either change the extraterrestrial environment or change ourselves physically. Becoming a cyborg opens up the possibility of having additional organs, so by merging ourselves with technology we can become the designers of our own body and perception.
Neil and Moon are artists above all: so more concerned about how humans - or the species that will evolve from humans – feel and behave than on technology itself. You have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with them, find out how they think and create, and in the process, expand your knowledge on the ways technology can relate to human body and mind and how we might be witnessing the start of our species’s renaissance.Â
In September, they will lead a group at Mesa&Cadeira to create a new application for Neil’s body.
Neil Harbisson is a Catalan-raised, British-born contemporary artist and cyborg activist best known for having an antenna implanted in his skull and for being officially recognized as a cyborg by a government.
The antenna allows him to perceive visible and invisible colours such as infrareds and ultraviolets via sound waves. The antenna’s internet connection allows him to receive colors from space as well as images, videos, music or phone calls directly into his head via external devices such as mobile phones or satellites.
Neil's  artworks investigate the relationship between colour and sound, experiment the boundaries of human perception and explore the use of artistic expression via sensory extensions.
In 2010 he and Moon Ribas co-founded The Cyborg Foundation, an international organization that aims to help humans become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgism as a social and artistic movement.
Moon Ribas is a Catalan contemporary choreographer and the co-founder of The Cyborg Foundation.
Since 2007 Moon has been experimenting with different cybernetics devices that allow her to perceive movement in a deeper way. Moon's main research consists in developing the seismic sense, perceiving the movement of real-time earthquakes all around the world, small as 1 in Richter scale.
Moon then translates this new sense on stage. Her main piece is called Waiting for Earthquakes, a piece where she stands waiting for an earthquake to take place. If there is one, she moves according to the intensity of the earthquake. If not, there's no dancing.
She has performed and given talks in several venues and festivals such as TedxMunich, TedxMuscat, Campus Party London, Fierce Fest (UK) and TNT.
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Mesas are one of the most rewarding and fun learning process happening in the world right now. We’ve been named as such by folks at SXSW and GOOD Magazine. We believe the only way to truly learn from someone we hugely admire is to step out from the speaker-audience format – where we tend to hear about perfect examples or hypothetical situations – and really work with that person: build something real together, going through the whole process and watching as that person makes decisions, solve unexpected problems and focus their energy.Â
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We use a very simple formula:
A brilliant leader at the head of the table
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A small and selected group of outstanding professionals
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One project that is conceived, developed and launched in 6 days.