Did you know that colors can be seen as well as heard? Well, now you do, thanks to 31-year-old Neil Harbisson, a color blind artist who spent years looking for a way of experiencing the colors of the world around him.
你知道嗎？顏色不僅可以被看見(jiàn)，還能被“聽(tīng)見(jiàn)”！31歲的尼爾·哈維森是一位色盲藝術(shù)家，他花費(fèi)多年時(shí)間終于找到了一種感受周圍世界色彩的方法，足以讓你大開(kāi)眼界。

For the past 10 years, Neil has been wearing an external electronic eye that picks up the frequencies of the colors before him and converts them into sound vibrations that he can hear. Initially he wore the device outside his head. But later, the London-based artist convinced surgeons to implant the chip into his skull to be able to perceive more intricate colors.
在過(guò)去的10年中，尼爾一直戴著一個(gè)外置電子眼，它可以把顏色的頻率轉(zhuǎn)化成聲波，然后尼爾就可以“聽(tīng)見(jiàn)”聲音了。最初的時(shí)候，他在大腦外部佩戴這一裝置，但后來(lái)這位倫敦藝術(shù)家說(shuō)服外科醫(yī)生把芯片植入自己的頭蓋骨里面，以便獲取更細(xì)微的顏色。

The idea for the device came about when Neil heard a cybernetics talk by computer scientist Adam Montandon at Dartington College of Arts in 2003. The pair then collaborated to create the device and Neil ended up memorizing various frequencies so he could recognize colors. So he still couldn’t see the colors, he could now hear and identify them.
這一想法源自2003年，尼爾在達(dá)林頓藝術(shù)學(xué)院聽(tīng)了一場(chǎng)科學(xué)家亞當(dāng)·蒙坦頓有關(guān)自動(dòng)控制學(xué)的講座。然后這兩個(gè)人就合作創(chuàng)造了這一裝置，后來(lái)尼爾通過(guò)記憶不同頻率來(lái)辨識(shí)顏色。所以，盡管他還是不能看見(jiàn)顏色，但他可以“聽(tīng)見(jiàn)”并辨識(shí)出來(lái)。

Neil, who was born with achromatopsia (a rare condition that allows him to see only black or white), said during a talk in 2012: “For me the sky is always grey, flowers are always grey and television is black and white. But since the age of 21 instead of seeing color I can hear color. I started to have favorite colors and I started to dream in color.”
尼爾是全色盲（只能看見(jiàn)黑色和白色），他在2012年的一次座談會(huì)上說(shuō)：“對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，天空是灰的，花兒是灰的，電視是黑白的。但是從21歲起，我可以聽(tīng)見(jiàn)顏色了，我開(kāi)始有了自己最喜歡的顏色，并且我做的夢(mèng)也有了色彩?！?/div>

At this point, Neil felt that the software and his brain had united, because in his dreams it wasn’t the software creating the electronic sounds, but his brain. So he decided to have the device implanted permanently.
這時(shí)候，尼爾感覺(jué)芯片軟件和自己的大腦已經(jīng)聯(lián)為一體，因?yàn)樵趬?mèng)里的顏色并不是電子眼產(chǎn)生的聲音，而是源自他自己的大腦，所以他決定永久植入這塊芯片。

The cyborg antenna, or ‘eyeborg’ that Neil now wears is like a long tube with an audio input on one end that is implanted at back of his skull. At the other end is a camera that ‘sees’ the colors before they are transformed to sound. Because every color has a different vibration, Neil is able to distinguish between different images, paintings and faces (each of them has a distinct sound).
尼爾所佩戴的機(jī)械天線“電子眼”，看上去就像一端帶有攝像頭、另一端植入頭蓋骨的長(zhǎng)管。由于每種顏色都有一個(gè)不同的頻率，所以尼爾能夠辨別不同的圖像、畫(huà)作或臉龐（每種圖像的聲音都不同）。

In fact, he can even hear colors that the human eye cannot perceive, like infrared and ultraviolet. And the reverse is also true – he is able to make color paintings of the voices of personalities like Hitler and Martin Luther King. He doesn’t even have to actually look at the colors. The images can be sent directly from his mobile phone to a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connector inside the chip. It’s actually unbelievable – Neil is the first person in the world who can experience an image without actually looking at it.
事實(shí)上，他甚至能聽(tīng)到人眼無(wú)法識(shí)別的顏色，如紅外線和紫外線?！奥?tīng)聲音”的逆過(guò)程也是可以實(shí)現(xiàn)的，他可以根據(jù)人物聲音，比如希特勒和馬丁·路德·金的聲音，畫(huà)出彩色畫(huà)。他甚至不用看顏色，這些圖像可以通過(guò)他的手機(jī)直接發(fā)送到芯片內(nèi)部的無(wú)線或藍(lán)牙。在該儀器的幫助下，尼爾成為世界上第一個(gè)不用看就可以感覺(jué)到圖像的人。

The implantation of the chip was done in a series of surgeries that took place between December and March in Barcelona. Neil said that the eyeborg has now become such an integral part of his identity that he even convinced authorities to let him take his passport photograph with it.
芯片移植由12月至次年3月的多次外科手術(shù)完成。尼爾說(shuō)電子眼現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)成為他整個(gè)身體的一部分，他甚至還說(shuō)服官方讓自己戴著它拍護(hù)照相片。

What’s really great about the eyeborg is not what it can do, but its future potential. Just think of the possibilities – Neil is connecting with devices now, but if more people get the implant, skull-to-skull communication might just be possible. It’s too fascinating!
“電子眼”真正偉大之處不在于它的功能，而是它未來(lái)的發(fā)展?jié)摿?。讓我們思考一下未?lái)的可能性吧：尼爾現(xiàn)在使用這一裝置，但如果更多的人植入芯片，就可以直接通過(guò)大腦進(jìn)行交流了。簡(jiǎn)直太迷人了！