Eyeborg

An eyeborg or eye-borg is an electronic eye that allows people to hear colors. It is mostly used by blind people or by people with color blindness. It works by using a head mounted camera that reads the colors directly in front of a person, and converts them into musical notes.Alfredo M. Ronchi: Eculture: Cultural Content in the Digital Age. Springer (New York, 2009). p.319  

The first eyeborg was made in England in 2003 by Adam Montandon in collaboration with colourblind artist Neil Harbisson. The invention won a British award in Innovation (Submerge 2004)Submerge Innovation Award (Bristol, 2004) and a European award in Content Tools and Interface Design (Europrix 2004).Europrix Europrix Awards In 2007, Peter Kese, a software developer from Slovenia, made further developments to the eyeborg by increasing the number of colors to 360 and adding color intensity through different volume levels.Harbisson, Neil. "Painting by ear" Modern Painters, The International Contemporary Art Magazine pp.70-73. New York, June 2008. Matias Lizana, a student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya is currently developing the eyeborg into a smaller chip as part of his final year project. The new chip will allow users to hear colors in stereo and to embed the device.Sanchis, Ima. "La veo en blanco y negro pero la oigo en colores", La Contra de La Vanguardia, 10 July 2010.

Other websites
Eyeborg Website  Eyeborg chip development site
Cyborg Enables Color-Blind Artist to Hear His Palette Article about an eyeborg user on Wired (USA 2008)
Eyeborg user example   on The Sunday Times (UK, 2008)
Seeing things in a different light Information from BBC (UK, 2005)
Neil Harbisson's personal website

References

Category:Vision