Manel De Aguas on Cyborg Art, Rain Sense and New Nature

What happens when technology becomes a way of experiencing nature rather than simply controlling it? For artist and self-described cyborg Manel De Aguas, this question has shaped years of experimentation with the body, technology and alternative forms of perception.

His latest project, Rain Sense, explores how rain could become a new sensory experience, translating elements such as its intensity and distance into sound. Developed with Filippo Rosati of Umanesimo Artificiale and Francisco Estivallet, the project continues De Aguas’ exploration of what he calls “new nature”: natural phenomena experienced through artificial senses and technological organs.

But there is much more to his practice than creating new ways to perceive the environment. His work moves between cyborg art, music, performance and digital culture, while constantly returning to nature as its starting point. Along the way, he has also had to negotiate the boundary between Manel the artist and Manel the person, taking a step back from his practice after years of living with his artistic persona almost continuously.

In this conversation with RED-EYE, De Aguas talks about Rain Sense, artificial senses, the strange intimacy between technology and nature, and why he is drawn to technology when it becomes “useless, poetic and tender.” He also reflects on his relationship with his own body, the idea of “new nature,” and his dream of eventually completing his own journey through the water cycle.

Read the full interview below.

You’re currently exploring a new way of sensing rain through the body. What made you want to bring rain even closer to yourself?

When I discovered the Cyborg Art movement back in 2017, I got deeply inspired by the possibilities technology offers us to connect to natural phenomena. I have felt connected to rain since I was a kid, but having the possibility to explore this connection a bit further by implementing sensory technologies in my body adds a layer of excitement because the possibilities and limitations of it are still a mystery to me. I think it’s very poetic to embody a natural phenomenon through practices like cyborg art and blending the limits between the body and the environment. It serves as a reminder that we are all part of the same.

You’ve been creating new sensory experiences through technology for years. Has working with the body changed the way you experience nature in everyday life?

Creating new self-designed experiences of nature has allowed me to perceive and think of nature in ways I didn’t before - like sensing the levels of humidity in a room, the approach of a thunderstorm even when I have no contact with the exterior or sensing the north geomagnetic pole of the Earth through an electronic compass implanted at the back of my knee. Regardless of these cyborg experiences, I also continued experiencing nature in the same way I experienced it during my whole life, thanks to the fake announced 5 senses lots of us are born with - humans tend to have more than 5. Nevertheless, I think through these artificial senses I started experiencing something we could call new nature - an expression of natural phenomena perceived through artificial senses or technological organs. Sometimes I wonder if technology is just nature finding new ways of existing.

There’s something very poetic about using technology to become more connected to something as simple as rain, weather or water. Do you see technology as a way of getting closer to nature?

I don’t think technology itself is a way to get closer to nature; technology is a tool, and we can use this tool for many purposes. I believe technology can be a great tool to bring us closer to nature and allow us to explore our natural environment further, but we can also use this tool for the opposite goals. I think there’s a big difference in talking about technology as a tool or as ‘a way to’. Our use of technology can be a way to connect with nature, not technology itself. But do we really want to? That’s the question.

Your body has become part of your creative practice. How much of Manel is the person, and how much is the character you’ve created around yourself?

In this precise moment, I think I have found a better balance between these two personas. Two years ago - marking 7 years of constant commitment - I took a break from my cyborg art practice and I stopped installing my cybernetic extensions daily. I needed to stop being Manel the artist 24/7 and give more space to Manel the person, without involving my art constantly. Cyborg Art is an art that invites the artist to become the art piece itself, and that commitment transforms your body as well into your own mobile gallery. Something similar happens with tattoos I guess, but Cyborg Art is an art that is mostly experienced through the brain rather than only through the body - the main art piece is the new self-designed sensory experience happening in the mind or the nervous system of the cyborg artist. That’s why we usually say that in cyborg art, the artist, the art piece, the gallery and the audience reside in the same subject.

You move between music, performance, body modification and digital culture. Do these feel like separate practices to you, or different ways of building the same world?

I definitely conceive them as different languages to articulate the same world, yeah. I think I couldn’t make music or create performances if I didn’t connect them somehow to my cyborg practice, but I couldn’t do any cyborg project if I didn’t link them to exploring natural phenomena, so I guess nature is the root of everything I do. But the truth is that I don’t find inspiration if I only look into one side of the equation. Where I find the biggest inspiration is when I hybridize topics and disciplines in order to create a very unique mix. I guess that’s why I became a cyborg-hippie and not a mountain guide.

What does nature sound like to you? And has technology changed the way you listen to it?

For many years, I have explored humidity, atmospheric pressure and temperature through bone-conducted sound directly in my head. The idea was to experience life in the atmosphere as if I were submerged in an underwater environment - whenever the humidity in my surroundings would change, the sound would become more watery, allowing me to sense I am going underwater. Temperature and atmospheric pressure would alter the pitch and the volume of the sound, allowing me to always perceive a different soundscape depending on the climatic season and my location. I am currently researching the creation of a sound that can allow me to transmit different rain variables - like the intensity or distance of the precipitation - through sound, but I haven’t designed the final version yet. The current project is called Rain Sense, and I am working on it along with my team, Filippo Rosati (Umanesimo Artificiale) and Francisco Estivallet.

We’re increasingly surrounded by devices that track, measure and optimize our bodies. You seem more interested in using technology to experience the world differently. What interests you about that distinction?

I am interested in technologies that can offer me a different point of view of reality and bring a bit of magic and surrealism into my daily life. I think life can be pretty monotonous, everyone following the same guidelines and surviving in a society that is all about making money and being efficient. And when it comes to technology, we always want it to be useful, practical, efficient, but I love to see that technology, as a metaphor for life, can be more than that, and its efficiency doesn’t rule its value. I love when technology is useless, poetic and tender. Saying this makes me think the way we use technology is just a mirror of how we live our lives.

If you could design one more strange little upgrade for yourself — inspired by an animal, a plant or something completely non-human — what would it be?

During my lifetime, I want to explore connecting to natural phenomena related to the water cycle. I am currently connecting to rain activity, but after this I would like to connect to a river, and maybe, when I die, be thrown into the sea to complete the cycle.

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