Juan Villoro
Prostheses, corrective surgery, and the growing importance of self-perception in defining identity have motivated certain avant-gardists to enter posthuman territory. Trans-species experiences have disproved those who thought that transsexuality was the last physiological frontier.
Predictably, some of these innovations have occurred in Barcelona. Barcelona opened up to the sea in 1992 with the Olympic Games, and since then, it has also been open to all fashions. In 2020, Barcelona’s Manel Mendoza, renamed Manel de Aguas, had artificial fins implanted in his head that allow him to sense the humidity of the environment, like a fish that went from the ocean to the Boqueria market.
Manel is not alone in this attempt, as confirmed by the Cyborg Foundation, founded in 2010 and whose motto is Design Yourself. If Artificial Intelligence supplants human functions, this project aims to use technology to transform the body creatively. It is an exercise in self-affirmation that may have more to do with the ultrahuman than the posthuman.
The Cyborg Foundation does not seek the “perfecting” of physiology but the free exercise of the organism’s possibilities. The project is part of the civil rights defense and extends this struggle to morphology and jurisprudence. Once a specific transformation limit has been reached, the cyborg should be legally considered a mutant, with the same rights as “natural” persons.
It is not difficult to sympathize with the libertarian spirit of this movement. However, we may also fear that the “do-it-yourself” technique will have questionable consequences on the functioning (not to mention the appearance) of a species unaccustomed to embedding plastic things.
The yearning for body transformation harnesses a technology born of medical needs. In 2003, at 21, Neil Harbisson started a project with computer engineer Adam Montandon to alleviate the deficiency that afflicted him: he could not see colors. With the implantation of an antenna in his brain, which protruded about ten centimeters above his head and was integrated into his body in such a functional way that it was no longer perceived as something foreign, he could distinguish up to 360 chromatic tones. In addition, the device allowed him to associate colors with sounds, thus surpassing human faculties.
In 2004, Harbisson applied for the renewal of his British passport. In Mexico, a country that strictly controls useless matters, he would have been required to cut the fringe that covers his forehead. In England, he faced more tolerant officials reluctant to portray him with an antenna on his head. Harbisson explained that the device is part of his body. After arduous negotiations, he became the first human officially recognized as a cyborg.
Not all trans-species initiatives are of this kind. At the age of 32, Englishman Tom Peters managed to become a spiritual dog. In his case, technology had nothing to do with it; this dog-loving man simply decided to become a Dalmatian. Since then, he has been fed on kibble, sleeps in the garden, and goes for walks on a leash around his neck. He is too robust for his costume to become the “Dalmatian 102” of the famous movie, but he follows the codes of a puppy conceived by Walt Disney. His wife has not stopped loving him and tells anyone who will listen that she “accompanies him in his struggle”.
Under very different conditions, I had a trans-species experience. The scene occurred in 2001 when Arthur C. Clarke set his Odyssey. I was settled in Barcelona with my family, and a technician came to connect to the Internet. When he heard me speak, he was surprised by my accent: “You speak like a cartoon!” he said admiringly.
That technician had grown up at a time when almost all Spanish dubbing was done in Mexico. During the time he spent in the apartment, he engaged me in conversation, less to get my opinions than to hear me talk like the characters in The Jungle Book or Top Cat and his gang. When he finished the job, he pulled out the invoice. After a moment of reflection, he exclaimed, “I can’t charge a cartoon!” and tore up the receipt.
The avant-garde city of Barcelona made me feel trans-species.
This was published in Spanish by Reforma on December 8, 2023
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