Moon Ribas

It’s 2018, another year in this shared reality of ours. We’ve come a long way, perfecting our technological prowess as we continue our evolution into the post-human.

There are cyborgs out there. In fact, most of us are pretty much cyborgs at this point. However, it is indeed likely only some of us are truly beginning to tap into that potential.

Moon Ribas is known to the world as the Catalan avant-garde artist and a cyborg activist. Moon Ribas is one of those cyborgs, an example of the elegantly functional relationship between human and machine.

With an online seismic sensor directly implanted above her left elbow, she is able to perceive the vibrations of nearby earthquakes via data from a custom iPhone app that consolidates seismic activity from geological monitors around the world. Ribas then transposes this ‘seismic sense’ into bodily movement in her graceful performance known as Waiting for Earthquakes or into sound in her piece Seismic Percussion.

With the subdermal implant, Moon Ribas is able to further push the boundaries of perception and experience by means of personal augmentation. During the devastating 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015, Ribas was awoken by a wave of vibrations in the middle of the night. She recalls it as the most peculiar of sensations, also describing it as her second heartbeat as she is able to empathize with the people experiencing the quake. This has lead her to advocate for a better understanding of the natural phenomena so that us humans may be able to better adapt to our own planet’s movements.

Along with Neil Harbisson, another fellow cyborg, they have co-founded the international organization Cyborg Foundation in the pursuit to help all the rest of us become post-human and to protect our rights as post-humans.

It is the insatiable creative thirst of humans like Moon Ribas that slowly pushes us to the inevitable brilliant future that is to come. 

Moon Ribas is an artist and activist. More of her beautiful work can be found on her site.

~ Emanuel Iral, Director of Visual Art, U.S. Transhumanist Party, January 11, 2018