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Formation | 2010 |
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Founder | Moon Ribas Neil Harbisson |
Founded at | Barcelona |
Website | cyborgfoundation |
The Cyborg Foundation is a nonprofit organization created in 2010 by cyborg activists and artists Moon Ribas and Neil Harbisson. [1] The foundation is a platform for the research, creation and promotion of projects related to extending and creating new senses and perceptions by applying technology to the human body. [2] The Cyborg Foundation was first housed in Tecnocampus Scientific Park (Barcelona) and is currently based in New York City. It collaborates with several institutions, universities and research centers around the world. [3]
Their mission is to assist humans in becoming cyborgs, promote the use of cybernetics as part of the human body and defend cyborg rights. [4] They have donated cyborg antennas to blind communities and have taught the use of colour-sensing technology to blind children to help them develop the sense of colour. [5] The foundation believes that some cybernetic extensions should be treated as body parts, not as devices. [6]
The foundation was created as a response to the growing number of letters and emails that Neil Harbisson received from people around the world interested in becoming a cyborg. [7] Since its creation the foundation has kick-started several new-sense development projects and has donated cyborg antennas to blind communities in Europe, Asia and America. [8] The first blind person to try out an eyeborg was Sabriye Tenberken followed by blind students from Braille Without Borders in Tibet and members of the Sociedad de Ciegos de Pichincha in Ecuador. [9]
In 2010, the foundation was the overall winner of the Cre@tic Awards, organized by Tecnocampus Mataró. [10]
In 2012, Spanish film director Rafel Duran Torrent, created a short film about the Cyborg Foundation.
In 2013, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival's Focus Forward Filmmakers Competition. [11]
A number of collaborations exist with Ecuador, since its president Lenin Moreno announced that his government would collaborate with the Cyborg Foundation to create new sensory organs. [12]
In 2012, [13] the Cyborg Foundation signed a partnership to create new cybernetic extensions in collaboration with Universidade de Pernambuco in Brazil. [14]
In 2014, the Cyborg Foundation participated in the European Union Commission for Robotic Laws.[ citation needed ]
In 2016, Cyborg Foundation together with Parsons School of Design, The New School, Sensorium Works and Pioneer Works launched Cyborg Futures, a cyborg residency program in New York designed to further the Cyborg Foundation's mission to support the use of cybernetics as part of the body and begin to introduce the diverse possibilities for artistic practices that utilize extended sensory capabilities. [15]
In 2016, together with Mesa & Cadeira, a group of people (which included a dental surgeon, engineers and a psychologist) created “Design Yourself” – a visual identity, tagline and website for the Foundation. The site explores the different human relationships with technology, and offers tools for expanding senses and abilities, and in the process, for becoming a cyborg. The group also developed a dental implant, that uses bluetooth technology and morse code to communicate. The first demonstration of the Transdental Communication System was presented in São Paulo.[ citation needed ]
In 2016, together with electronic civil rights and civil liberties researcher and activist Rich MacKinnon, a list of Cyborg Civil Rights were proposed at South by Southwest conferences. This list described the redefinition and defense of cyborg civil liberties and the sanctity of cyborg bodies. It also foresaw a battle for the ownership, licensing, and control of augmented, alternative, and synthetic anatomies; the communication, data and telemetry produced by them; and the very definition of what it means to be human. [16]
The Rights include morphological freedom and the right to bodily sovereignty. [16]
James J. Hughes is an American sociologist, bioethicist and futurist. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the Associate Provost for institutional research, assessment, and planning at University of Massachusetts Boston. He is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future and is currently writing a book on secular Buddhism and moral bioenhancement tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha: Using Neurotechnology to Become Better People.
Álvaro Fernando Noboa Pontón is an Ecuadorian businessman and politician. He is the father of the incumbent president, Daniel Noboa.
A cyborg is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline. In contrast to biorobots and androids, the term cyborg applies to a living organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on feedback.
An eyeborg or eye-borg is a body modification apparatus which fits on the wearer's head, and is designed to allow people to perceive color through sound waves. It works with a head-mounted antenna that senses the colors directly in front of a person, and converts them in real-time into sound waves through bone conduction.
The Fundación Picasso, also known as the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Foundation, is a foundation based in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain with the objective of promoting and promulgating the work of the artist Pablo Picasso. They are headquartered in the home on the Plaza de la Merced that was his birthplace, now the Museo Casa Natal, one of the world's many Picasso museums.
Neil Harbisson is a Catalan-raised British-Irish-American cyborg artist and activist for transpecies rights. He is best known for being the first person in the world with an antenna implanted in his skull. Since 2004, international media have hailed him as the world's first legally recognized cyborg, following the UK government's passport office's acceptance of his antenna as a body part. Publications like The Guardian have also described him as the world's first cyborg artist. His antenna sends audible vibrations through his skull to report information to him. This includes measurements of electromagnetic radiation, phone calls, and music, as well as videos or images which are translated into audible vibrations.
Cyborg anthropology is a discipline that studies the interaction between humanity and technology from an anthropological perspective. The discipline offers novel insights on new technological advances and their effect on culture and society.
Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca is an artist from Spain who uses digital technologies in the fields of mechatronic performance and installation art.
Sonochromatism or sonochromatopsia is a neurological phenomenon in which colours are perceived as sounds. The phenomenon is created by the union between a brain and a colour-to-sound software or chip. People who report such experiences are known as sonochromats. The term was coined by Neil Harbisson to differentiate his experience of colour from people with chromesthesia or colour-to-sound synesthesia.
A cyborg antenna is an osseointegrated device implanted in a human skull. The antenna, composed of a wireless camera on one end and a wireless sound vibration implant on the other end, allows wireless communication and wireless transmission of images, sound or video from skull to skull. The antenna uses audible vibrations in the skull to report information. This includes measurements of electromagnetic radiation, phone calls, music, as well as video or images which are transmitted through audible vibrations. The Wi-Fi enabled antenna also allows the reception signals and data from satellites.
Moon Ribas is a Spanish cyborg activist and avant-garde artist best known for developing and implanting online seismic sensors in her feet that allow her to feel earthquakes through vibrations. Since 2007, international media have described her as the world's first cyborg woman or the world's first female cyborg artist. She is the co-founder of the Cyborg Foundation, an international organisation that encourages humans to become cyborgs and promotes cyborgism as an art movement and the co-founder of the Transpecies Society, an association that gives voice to people with non-human identities and offers the development of new senses and organs in community. Her choreography works are based on the exploration of new movements developed by the addition of new senses or sensory extensions to the dancer.
Cristóbal Cobo is a senior education and technology specialist at the World Bank. Previously he was professor and researcher in new and educational technologies, who worked on projects in South America, North America and Europe. He currently is a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and associate at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, part of the University of Oxford, England. His main theoretical contribution is the concept of “invisible learning,” promoting the idea that learning should be a result of action and interaction, rather than through instruction. He is also a defensor of open access publication, particularly in Latin America.
Cyborg art, also known as cyborgism, is an art movement that began in the mid-2000s in Britain. It is based on the creation and addition of new senses to the body via cybernetic implants and the creation of art works through new senses. Cyborg artworks are created by cyborg artists; artists whose senses have been voluntarily enhanced through cybernetic implants.
Luis Fernando Flores Alvarado, better known as Fernanfloo, is a Salvadoran gaming and comedy YouTuber. He has uploaded more than 544 videos, with over 10 billion total views. His channel has 47.6 million subscribers. As of July 2023, his channel is the 48th-most-subscribed channel on YouTube, and the fourth most-subscribed Spanish-speaking channel behind El Reino Infantil, Badabun and JuegaGerman. He is currently the most subscribed channel in El Salvador and Central America.
Manel De Aguas Muñoz, known artistically as Manel De Aguas, is a Spanish cyborg artist and transpecies activist based in Barcelona, best known for developing and installing weather sensory fins in his head. The fins, formally known as 'Weather Fins', allow him to hear atmospheric pressure, humidity and temperature changes through implants at each side of his head. Depending on the changes he feels, he can predict weather changes as well as sense his current altitude.
The Jaime Brunet International Prize was established in 1998 with the objective of distinguishing people, organizations and institutions that promote the defence of human rights. It is awarded by the Jaime Brunet Foundation of the UPNA. This award also aims to recognize the work of those who fight to eliminate situations of inhumane or degrading treatment in violation of people's inherent rights to dignity. The prize consists of a diploma, a sculpture commemorating the award and €36,000 in cash.
Asha Ismail is a Kenyan human rights activist. She is the founder and president of Save a Girl, Save a Generation, an organisation whose mission is to end female genital mutilation, the dowry system, forced marriage and other abuses against women in Africa and Asia.
The Doctor Juan Abarca International Award in Medical Sciences, known as the Abarca Prize, is an award that recognises research and innovation through a biomedical finding of global significance.
CyborgNest Ltd is a company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The start-up was the first in the world to commercialise sensory enhancement technology and created a wearable which used haptic technology (vibrations) to convey information to the wearer called NorthSense. The device was released in 2017 to connect wearers to the Earth's magnetic field.
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