Hybrid Humans

Like many others, Harry Parker (1996, D) uses prosthetic technology to navigate our world – a world which has a long way to go before being considered truly accessible for all. In his recent book, he explores the history and the future of technological augmentation, and its relevance to us all.

If you’ve ever ducked your head while driving a car through a low tunnel, or looked for a pair of glasses that you are already wearing, you have had a taste of what it is to be a hybrid human: you’ve introduced a piece of technology into your life and allowed it to become a part of your body map. It has become a part of you.

Technological augmentations to our bodies and our lifestyles are becoming a part of daily life for many of us. This should not be surprising: our very survival as a species is largely due to our adaptability and exceptional ability to use tools. For many of us, mobile phones, contact lenses, and listening devices are a hugely useful, but nonessential part of our lives. A day without them might be frustrating but does not stop us from carrying out most daily tasks. It does not affect the way that society perceives us, or how we feel about ourselves. However, for millions of people across the globe, technology is a crucial facilitator of their lives.

I look around me, and I see that we are all experiencing a deepening and more intimate relationship with technology. We are all, in some ways, plugged in, and this changes our bodies and brains. (…) so many more of us support our imperfect biology with technology.

Harry Parker considers himself to be a hybrid human: 12% machine, in fact. He uses two hi-tech prosthetic legs; one includes a bionic knee with a microprocessor which adjusts to his gait, adapts to prevent falls, and has a variety of modes for different sports. Hybrid human is a term he has adopted for himself over other options such as ‘cyborg’ or ‘bionic’. It better describes his experiences and how he feels.

‘Cyborg’ and ‘bionic’ carry too much baggage – they conjure too many fictions and unrealistic expectations. ‘Differently abled’ seems a word game. So, I have started to think of myself as a ‘hybrid human’. It is a label just for me, not one I would impose on others. Hybrid bikes and hybrid cars, hybrid working – it is on trend. It isn’t perfect, but a combination of two different elements seems to fit, and I like that ‘human’ is part of it. Human, more than anything, is what I want to feel.

Harry left Radley with a keen interest in art and design which was nurtured by dons like Tom Ryder and flourished amid the toprate facilities available in the College. He went on to complete a Foundation Degree at Falmouth College of Art and later studied History of Art at University College London, before joining the British Army when he was 23 and serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Harry in Basra, Iraq, 2007.

On the face of it, this seems like a dramatic change of direction, but Harry was no stranger to the Armed Forces. His father, General Sir Nick Parker, has had a distinguished military career with appointments across the British Isles and overseas, and this was partly the reason for choosing a boarding school. Not only is he from a military family, but Harry also reflects that the military is “quite a creative place to work” where problem solving is key.

Harry was severely injured by an IED explosion in Afghanistan and lost both legs as a consequence. The extent and severity of his injuries were such that, anywhere else, he would probably have died. As he puts it in his book, “there was no better place on Earth to sustain my injuries. Within 18 minutes I was delivered to Camp Bastion field hospital, the best trauma hospital in the world with just enough life left to be saved. It was a dramatic and unusual way to become disabled.”

The incredible technology which makes up Harry’s prostheses, along with years of gruelling recovery and practice, mean that he walks just as quickly as anyone else you might pass on the street. He can carry his children on his shoulders, commute to work, and stroll hand-in-hand with his wife. “When I am without them, I feel less alive,” he writes. Being able to descend a flight of stairs while talking to a friend illustrates how far the microprocessor knee has become a part of him – if the computing power of this device did not lower his weight in a controlled, reliable way, he’d need to concentrate fully on his movement to prevent a fall, and the opportunity for conversation would be lost.

Embodiment is the universal compatibility of the ‘hybrid human’, combining technology and the body intuitively to create a whole from something incomplete. The media is full of inspirational stories: Paralympians beating their able-bodied competition on blade prosthetics; AI assisted hearing devices that can focus on particular conversations; paralysed patients harnessing the power of thought via brain implants to move robotic arms or even exoskeletons. Are we headed towards a future where technology could make people like Harry more capable than an able-bodied person?

The truth is that many enabling technologies that we are shown in the headlines are still very nascent, and those that have been developed commercially have a physical as well as a monetary price tag. The emotional, physical, and biological interfaces between humans and machines are still imperfect. It’s easy to believe that technology has ‘fixed’ Harry, but the cost and the effort are hidden. It can take years to master the use of prosthetics, and that is for those to whom they are suited, which is to say, not everyone. There are risks and pain: osteopenia, arthritis, chronic sores and blisters, to name just a few.

With my sockets there always seem to be a compromise; to achieve a tight enough fit, I had to accept that there would be pain and the chance of some damage (…) every now and again, once a month say, there is a day when it feels like I am in a cruelly devised torture machine.

Fundamentally, for many disabled people in the 21st century, something as apparently insignificant as a small flight of stairs, or a badly labelled hyperlink, is still a barrier to accessing everyday experiences and information.

The interface of humankind and machine is an ongoing challenge. In writing his book, Hybrid Humans, Harry explores life-changing options such as osseointegration, where a direct structural and functional connection is achieved between living bone and a mechanical implant, a technique first popularised in dental surgery, but now used by some amputees. This overcomes the biggest challenges of socket prostheses, and makes it possible for some amputees to walk when they would not have been able to otherwise. There have been thousands of successful cases, but risks, such as infection of the bone or the hole in the skin (which is permanently open), as well as prohibitive costs, make it off limits for many.

Hybrid Humans charts the early history humans enabling themselves and each other. From the dawn of civilisation, there is evidence of individuals surviving traumatic injury and being cared for by their community. This is evidenced by the identifiable marks of amputation and bone regrowth in their skeletal remains. Examples of prostheses, functional and aesthetic, have been found from ancient Egypt, China and from the Roman Empire.

As well as reviewing this history in his book, Harry also ventures into the fringe world of transhumanism, a branch of the futurist philosophy which advocates the use of emerging technologies to overcome human limitations or enhance natural human senses and abilities.

The term cyborg dates back to 1960 when it was coined by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in reference to the idea of a human being who, through assimilation of technology, could survive in space, using their enhanced physiology to overcome the effects of vacuum and extremes of temperature and radiation. Since the 1960s, the contexts in which the term cyborg is used has evolved,

Harry in the studio at Radley College, 2001.

but the level of public interest in it has only increased. The concept ‘cyborg’ is popular in fiction, film, and art. It has become “a modern myth, filled with the fear, hope, and the monstrous”, bridging new and ancient worries about mortality, the advance of technology, and depersonalisation.

In 2004, the UK Passport Office rejected a renewal request by color blind artist Neil Harbisson, a man who has an antenna implanted into his skull. Harbisson’s antenna allows him to hear and feel colours, including those beyond the visible spectrum, via audible vibrations in a similar way to bone conductive headphones. With internet connectivity, it is also possible for Harbisson to receive phone calls, music, and signals from satellites via the implant. His antenna sprouts from the occipital bone and extends forward to a sensor level with his forehead. The Passport Office initially rejected Harbisson’s photograph on grounds that wearing electronic headgear do not meet the standard photograph requirements. With testimony from his doctor, college, and friends, he was able to convince the authorities that his antenna should be treated as an organ not a device. In this way, he became regarded by many as the first official cyborg.

Harbisson is not alone. There are others who identify as cyborgs: artists, scientists, and engineers who are working to augment their ability to sense the world around them, and communicate with others. Many in the community believe they are taking the first steps towards a future where mankind and machine are fully integrated – a future where we are limitless and immortal. While the cyborg community is still small, the number of ‘biohackers’, people who use experimental technology and science to ‘hack’ their bodies, is larger. The best-known example of this is the ubiquitous ‘chip implant’: a microchip inserted under the skin, most often between the thumb and forefinger, which can be programmed for contactless payments, storing data, or opening doors.

The convenience of paying in a shop with a swipe of your hand might be exciting for some, and it is difficult not to be transfixed by the extraordinary possibilities that transhumanism promises, but for Harry, this is merely an interesting diversion from the main point. The experience of aging, even dying, defines what it is to be human, and to be alive. We are not yet moving into an era where medical science makes it possible for us to live endless, healthy, mobile lives; there is still a lot of work to do to solve basic problems for ordinary people. Factors such as low levels of nutrition and limited access to preventive healthcare are symptoms of poverty; they also increase the risk of disability. People with impairments, in turn, are more likely to be socially excluded from work and education opportunities, making poverty more likely. In many circumstances, disability and poverty reinforce each other.

The strength of technology such as Harry’s prostheses is that they have the potential to overcome human inability and level the playing field for able and disabled bodies. The risk is that, instead of narrowing this gap, increasingly sophisticated and complex technologies move ever further out of the reach of many people across the world. We already recognise the damaging affect that digital poverty has in a world where, more and more, getting online is the only way to get ahead.

The pace of innovation often means that an expensive piece of equipment can become outdated in only a few years. Additionally, like all other sectors, medical technologies are at the mercy of market forces. Imagine purchasing a crucial prosthesis at an eye-watering cost, and going through the laborious and painful process of having it fitted, only for the manufacturer to go bust a year later, making mechanical servicing and software support difficult, if not impossible.

Examples of Harry’s school artwork from his time at Radley

Some disabilities are much better catered for than others. Auditory impairments, for example, may be treated very successfully in a number of ways, whereas visual impairments continue to challenge even the most future-thinking research. The rarer a disease or impairment is, the smaller the market, and consequently less funding and investment is attracted to related research. Creating a society where everyone is equally able to thrive will require us to identify these gaps and take action.

I went from bedridden, to being a wheelchair user, to walking on prosthetics. I travelled along a spectrum of disability from utter dependance to tech assisted independence. My journey from dependence to independence, in a sense being ‘fixed’ to be more normal, was thanks to the resources I had access to. So often, society funds and supports access to technology for some disabilities over others.

For Harry, a hybrid human, there are other problems to solve in the future, too; issues of law and governance which need to be discussed. Successful embodiment of a prosthesis or other piece of medical technology can engender strong emotional connections alongside physical dependency. If a device that you rely on to move, to speak, or to sense the world around you, is broken it is no mere inconvenience. Individuals have been sharing stories about the damage that has been caused to their wheelchairs by airlines during transport, and even the total loss of pieces of equipment tailored to their specific needs. Harry poses the question: what should the law say if a person deliberately damages his prosthetic leg? Can it really be anything other than bodily harm? With people investing more time, money, and emotional energy into the tech which enables their daily lives, legal decisions may be called upon to reflect these increasingly crucial roles.

Advocacy seems to come naturally to Harry, and it shows as much in his work as in his writing. In 2011 he took up a role in the civil service but ended up gravitating back towards the art world. He completed a postgraduate degree in art in 2016, and is now Director of Education at the Royal Drawing School where his passion is widening access. The Royal Drawing School receives applications from a wide range of school leavers and students, but the differing quality of these applications indicates the deep disparity that exists in art education across the country.

The prioritisation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM subjects), combined with a general lack of funding, has meant that students are less likely to be encouraged to apply to art courses, or be supported through the application process. It has also resulted in a reduction of investment into teaching, facilities, and resources in many state schools. The Royal Drawing School’s postgraduate-level course gives a full scholarship to all students to increase accessibility; the challenge for Harry and his colleagues is to identify the applicants who have talent and potential but have not had the benefit of good art education and support to produce an exciting and dynamic application.

With a full-time job and a young family, it is impressive that he is able to find time to do anything creative. While he admits that painting and drawing have taken a backseat while he has been writing, art is still a source of joy and inspiration. The future interface of art and technology is not something Harry is scared to speculate on.

Is a drawing by a robot arm art? Probably not. But there is reason to think that art will continue to be front and centre in the future of our society. Humans have communicated visually, as far as we can tell, for almost as long as we have spoken to one another. Visual and artistic communication is exceptionally good at condensing information and messages down, and is better able to transcend political, cultural and language barriers. Arresting visuals to describe complicated data are now a normal part of news broadcasting, and these, along with bold non-verbal signage, played a crucial role in combatting the spread of COVID. When faced with conceptualising the complex structure of DNA, Francis Crick drew an illustration of the famous double helix. Leonardo da Vinci used parchment and ink to explore the intricacies of war and flying machines. Conversely, art is able to explore personal internal states and emotions when language is too rigid or brittle to do so.

His exploration into the history of prostheses and the future of human augmentation might seem a world apart from the lived experience of many of us, but the truth is that there is a lot to relate to in Hybrid Humans. Harry thinks that we could be better at adopting technologies, especially where stigmas still exist around, for example, mobility. As an aging population, the majority of us will need to embrace innovation to keep us out in the world, experiencing, taking part, and staying connected. “I wanted to write a book that was relevant to everyone,” he says, and he has. Most of us already are hybrid humans.

ARK, 2018, by Harry Parker.