The man with high-tech synesthesia

last updated 8 January 2015

Neil Harbisson hears colors, said Sally Davies in the Financial Times. The Northern Irish artist was born with extreme color blindness and grew up seeing the world in grayscale. “Kids at school teased me,” says the 30-year-old. “People found it funny when I wore mismatched socks.” In college in southern England, he befriended a cybernetics expert who agreed to build Harbisson a device that would allow him to perceive color. The result was the “eyeborg”—a high-tech headset fitted with a tiny camera that hangs over Harbisson’s forehead like a third eye. The gadget translates color frequencies into sound, which is then pulsed directly into his skull via a headband. The first thing he looked at with it was a red bulletin board. “It made the note F, the lowest on the spectrum. Red was my favorite color for years.” Harbisson wears the headset everywhere, and delights in sights that others take for granted. “The [supermarket] cleaning product aisle is very exciting. The rows of rainbow-colored bottles sound like a symphony.” The eyeborg has even changed how Harbisson approaches home decoration. “My bedroom is black and white, which are silent and allow me to sleep. The back of my front door is green, which is a middle-sounding note—like a tuning fork that resets me before I go out.”