Eyeborg and the Art Night in Venice

Giudecca 795 Art Gallery is about to host the only official cyborg citizen in the world: Mr Neil Harbisson,  artist, with his "eyeborg" and a selection of his cyber art. The Irish/British artist, musician, and performer was born with achromatopsia, a visual impairment that prevents the perception of colour. In his black and white world, he created the "eyeborg", a device that transforms colour into sound. It uses a head-mounted camera that converts the colour it sees into sound waves.

Harbisson has travelled the world to find the main colours of capital cities in more than 40 countries. He scans each capital with his eyeborg until he is able represent each city in cyber artwork containing two main hues. Sound Portraits are another specialty, rendering faces by listening to the colours they contain. In order to create a sound portrait, he needs to stand in front of the person, point his eyeborg at different parts of each face, and then write down the different notes on special manuscript paper with 360 lines.

Since 2005, he has created sound portraits of Prince Charles, Antoni Tàpies, Tracey Emin, Leonardo di Caprio, Peter Brook, and Woody Allen among others, and each of their faces creates a different chord depending on its colours. On the occasion of the 54th Venice Art Biennial and opening on Venice's first-ever White Night at the Giudecca 795 Art Gallery on Saturday, 18 June 2011, visitors will be invited to a live performance where they can try on an eyeborg to experience the sound of colour firsthand.