The Cyborg Foundation is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

created in 2010 by

cyborg A cyborg (, a portmanteau of ''cybernetics, cybernetic'' and ''organism'') is a being with both Organic matter, organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Moon Ribas Moon Ribas (born 24 May 1985) 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 ...

and

Neil Harbisson Neil Harbisson (born 1982) 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, internation ...

. 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. The Cyborg Foundation was first housed in Tecnocampus Scientific Park (Barcelona) and is currently based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It collaborates with several institutions, universities and research centers around the world. Their mission is to assist humans in becoming cyborgs, promote the use of cybernetics as part of the human body and defend cyborg rights. 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. The foundation believes that some cybernetic extensions should be treated as body parts, not as devices.

History

The foundation was created as a response to the growing number of letters and emails that

received from people around the world interested in becoming a cyborg. 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. The first blind person to try out an eyeborg was

Sabriye Tenberken Sabriye Tenberken (born 1970) is a German tibetologist and co-founder of the organisation Braille Without Borders. Biography Sabriye was born in Cologne, West Germany. She lost her sight slowly as a child due to retinitis pigmentosa, and he ...

followed by blind students from

Braille Without Borders Braille Without Borders (BWB) is an international organisation for the blind in developing countries. It was founded in Lhasa, Tibet, by Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg in 1998. Overview BWB's mission is to give hope and practical ski ...

in Tibet and members of the Sociedad de Ciegos de Pichincha in Ecuador. In 2010, the foundation was the overall winner of the Cre@tic Awards, organized by Tecnocampus Mataró. 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 The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

's Focus Forward Filmmakers Competition.

Collaborations

A number of collaborations exist with Ecuador, since its president

Lenin Moreno Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of ...

announced that his government would collaborate with the Cyborg Foundation to create new sensory organs. In 2012, the Cyborg Foundation signed a partnership to create new cybernetic extensions in collaboration with

Universidade de Pernambuco The University of Pernambuco (, UPE; formerly ', FESP) is a public state university located in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List ...

in Brazil. In 2014, the Cyborg Foundation participated in the European Union Commission for Robotic Laws. In 2016, Cyborg Foundation together with Parsons School of Design,

The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

, Sensorium Works and

Pioneer Works Pioneer Works is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit cultural arts center in the Red Hook, Brooklyn, Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City that was founded by artist Dustin Yellin in 2012. Pioneer Works includes a large exhibition spac ...

launche
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. In 2016, together wit
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.

Cyborg rights

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 South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

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.https://www.cyborgfoundation.com/ The Rights include

morphological freedom Morphological freedom refers to a proposed civil right of a person to either maintain or modify their own body, on their own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology. T ...

and the

right to bodily sovereignty Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily int ...

References

External links

Cyborg Foundation websiteTED Global: "Listening to Picasso"
* ttp://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/a-surgical-implant-for-seeing-colors-through-sound The New York Times: "A surgical implant for seeing colors through sound"br>Cyborg Foundation Rafel Duran Torrent

Foundation Guide
{{Robotics Biotechnology organizations Biocybernetics Cybernetics Futures studies organizations Implants (medicine) Neurotechnology Robotics organizations Cyborgs Articles containing video clips

History

Collaborations

Cyborg rights

See also

References

External links