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    • Early years

    Neil Harbisson, the son of an Irish father and Catalan mother, was born in London on 27 July 1982, and lived there until the family moved to Mataró, Catalonia.
    As a child, he had difficulty distinguishing between colours, and he was thought to be colour-blind. It was not until he was eleven years old that, after a series of eye tests, he was diagnosed with achromatopsy, an irreversible visual impairment preventing him from seeing any colours. Instead, he sees things in shades of grey.
    Neil's achromatopsy is a congenital neural inability to process colour data. He has relatives with similar symptoms.
    From the moment he learnt that he could not see any colours, Neil has gone through different stages regarding colours and what they mean to him.

    Adulthood

    Since he was very young, Neil showed artistic sensitivity, studying piano and art. At sixteen, he specialised in art at the Alexander Satorras secondary school in Mataró, where he was allowed to use shades of grey in his assignments.
    Two years later, in 2001, he went to Walton's New School of Music in Dublin to continue his piano studies and in the following year he moved to Dartington College of Arts, London.
    During his second year at Dartington, he took a course on cybernetics and the senses taught by Adam Montandon. Neil was fascinated and explained his situation to Adam, who felt that his condition could be visually complemented by a cybernetic device that would allow him to perceive colours by hearing them.
    This is how the two came to create an electronic device known as the Eyeborg and Neil began to differentiate between colours, opening up for him a new way of perceiving the world. The experience was so positive that the Eyeborg became a part of his body.
    In 2004, overcoming administrative resistance, he became the first cyborg with a passport, when the British government allowed him to appear in his passport photo together with the electronic eye, thus recognising his status as a cyborg.

    Current situation

    Over the years, Neil has learnt the colour equivalent of each frequency and has learnt to process sounds from colours alongside noise from his surroundings.
    He defines this new visual condition as "sonochromatic" perception or "sonochromatopsy" (sono - sound; chromat - colour; opsy - visual condition). According to Neil, the fact that he never takes off his electronic eye has modified his brain and neurones, so that he can interpret sounds and colours reciprocally and individually.
    The nature of "sonochromatism" has become a driving force behind his artistic creativity and is one of the main motifs of his works.
    Since 2010 Neil has wanted a magnetic implant under his skin on his cranium in order to experience sound directly on the bone and enhance the portability of the Eyeborg.