尼尔·哈比森是西班牙一名以操控色彩为业的画家，同时也是一位色盲症患者。那他是如何感知这个多姿多彩的世界，并且用手中的画笔将其再现出来的呢？原来，他拥有与众不同的与世界交流的能力，可以“听”出大自然的色彩。而实现这一奇迹的途径，就是让颜色变成声音。
Well, I was born with...with a rare visual condition called 1)achromatopsia, which is total color blindness. So I’ve never seen color, and I don’t know what color looks like, ’cause I come from a grayscale world. To me, the sky is always gray, flowers are always gray, and television is still in black and white.
呃，我天生患有一种罕见的视觉疾病，叫做全色盲。所以我不知道什么是颜色，也不知道颜色是什么样的，因为我来自一个灰色的国度。对我来说，天空永远是暗灰的，花儿也是暗灰的，电视依然是黑白的。
But, since the age of 21, instead of seeing color, I can hear color. In 2003, I started a project with computer scientist Adam Montandon, and the result, with further collaborations with Peter Kese from Slovenia, and Matias Lizana from Barcelona, is this electronic eye. It’s a color sensor that detects the color frequency in front of me and sends this frequency to a chip installed at the back of my head, and I hear the color in front of me through the bone, through bone conduction.
So, life has changed dramatically since I hear color, ’cause color is almost everywhere, so the biggest change for example is going to an art gallery, I can listen to a Picasso, for example. So it’s like going to a concert hall, ’cause I can listen to the paintings. And supermarkets, I find this is very shocking, it’s very, very attractive to walk along a supermarket. It’s like going to a nightclub. It’s full of different melodies,yeah. Especially the aisle with cleaning products; it’s just fabulous.
Also, the way I dress has changed. Before, I used to dress in a way that it looked good. Now I dress in a way that it sounds good.
但是，当我21岁时，虽然看不见颜色，但我能听见颜色。在2003年，我和计算机科学家亚当·蒙坦顿一起开展了一个项目，后来又得到来自斯洛文尼亚的彼得·克瑟和来自巴塞罗那的马蒂亚斯·利萨纳的帮助，我们的成果就是这个电子眼。它是一个色彩传感器，它可以探测到我眼前颜色的频率，然后把这个频率传回置于我脑后的一个芯片里，这样通过骨头传导声音，我就能听到我眼前的颜色了。
所以自从我能听见颜色，我的生活发生了翻天覆地的变化，因为颜色无处不在，比如，最大的改变就是去艺术画廊，例如，我能听到毕加索的作品了。这感觉就像去音乐厅，因为我能听到那些绘画作品。还有超市，这着实让我惊讶，在超市里漫步真的非常非常吸引人，就像去泡夜吧一样。耳边总响起不同的旋律，是这样的。尤其是那条卖清洁用品的过道，真是太神奇了。
而且，我的穿着方式也变了。以前，我的穿衣标准是让自己看起来好看，现在我会穿让自己听起来悦耳的衣服。
Also, food, the way I look at food has changed, ’cause now I can display the food on a plate, so I can eat my favorite song. So depending on how I display it, I can hear and I can compose music with food. So imagine a restaurant where we can have, like Lady Gaga salads as starters. I mean, this would get teenagers to eat their vegetables, probably. And also, some Rachmaninov piano concertos as main dishes, and some 2)Bjork or Madonna desserts, that would be a very exciting restaurant where you can actually eat songs. Two years ago, I created the 3)Cyborg Foundation, which is a foundation that tries to help people become a cyborg; tries to encourage people to extend their senses by using technology as part of the body.
We should all think that knowledge comes from our senses, so if we extend our senses, we will consequently extend our knowledge. I think life will be much more exciting when we stop creating applications for mobile phones and we start creating applications for our own body. I think this will be a big, big change that we’ll see during this century.
So I do encourage you all to think about which senses you’d like to extend. I would encourage you to become a cyborg. You won’t be alone. Thank you.
还有，食物。我看待食物的方式也变了，因为现在我能把食物组合好放在盘子里，然后我就可以把我喜欢的音乐吃掉。通过排列我的食物，我能听见食物，也能用食物作曲。设想一下有这么一家餐厅，供应Lady Gaga沙拉作为开胃菜。我想，这样可能会鼓励一些青少年多吃蔬菜。还有，餐厅供应拉赫玛尼诺夫钢琴协奏曲作为主菜，还有比约克或麦当娜甜点，那这家餐厅一定很赞，因为你都能在那里享用音乐了。
两年前，我成立了半机械人基金会，这个基金会旨在帮助人们成为半机械人，鼓励人们通过用科技装备自己的身体，从而扩展自己的感觉官能。
我们都应该认识到知识来源于我们的感知，所以如果我们扩展了自己的感觉官能，我们也就相应地扩展了我们的知识。当我们不再为手机开发各种应用，而转为为自己的身体开发应用，我觉得生活将会变得更加刺激。我想这将会是本世纪我们见证的一个巨大的转变。
所以我建议你们不妨想一下你们想扩展哪些感觉官能。我会鼓励你们成为一个半机械人。这样你们就不会感到孤单了。谢谢。翻译：Christy