Fuel Your Imagination

Technology, Science

Transhuman

Izzy Ashton

Deputy Editor, BITE Creativebrief

Share


Transhuman

Imagine if you could make yourself magnetic, install a camera in your eye or surgically attach an antenna into your skull to let you ‘hear’ colour? Would you do it? These are just some of the bio-hacks that have been captured in the ongoing series, Transhuman.

Photographer David Vintiner and Creative Director Gem Fletcher started photographing the individuals in 2015 and have captured the biohackers and body modifiers who are augmenting their own physical and psychological human capabilities beyond the natural limits.

Some of the hacks are functional while others simply allow people to explore their own anthropological boundaries. When filmmaker Robert Spence lost his eye in a shotgun accident, he immediately set about creating a camera that would fit into his eye socket; Neil Harbisson was born with a severe type of colour blindness so had an antenna surgically implanted into his skull that allows him to hear colour; and Rin Räuber has magnetic implants in both of her hands.

The pace at which technological development moves allows us to explore areas of body hacking that have never been seen before. This is revolutionary but it also brings rise to questions around the ethics of the action. Although Spence can have a camera in his eye, does this give him the right to constantly film those around him?

As humans, we enjoy being able to group people and societal groups underneath a label. The Transhuman individuals can be seen as cyborgs but they are also artists, philosophers and academics. This series explores how human they really are, in an ever changing world in which the word human in itself may no longer be label enough.

Visit Gem Fletcher's website to find out more.

Related Tags

technology