Tanya Vlach, "The Cyborg Consciousness"

The Cyborg Consciousness. How does our self-image / imagination change when technology is integrated in the body. TANYA VLACH Trans-disciplinary artist, Tanya has an extensive background in dance, theater, media, and literary arts. She has produced and curated several multidisciplinary arts events throughout the Bay Area. In 2005 Tanya Vlach was found on the side of the road unconscious from a severe car-accident. Since losing her left eye and her brush with death, Tanya changed the direction of her work to the more personal dealing with perception, identity, and transformation. Besides writing and creating multimedia pieces exploring these themes, it led to the the sci-fi idea of an augmented technological upgrade of her prosthetic eye. An artistic experiment in building a miniature recording wireless device to be implanted in her prosthetic eye, Tanya is currently in development on organizing an engineering team to build a prototype. This eye-camera is not only a way for her to transform her lost eye from a traumatic car accident bionically, but a conceptual and transdisciplinary experiment merging media and performance. In August of 2011, Tanya completed a successful fundraising campaign through social media and crowd funding on Kickstarter to raise the preliminary funds to build her bionic eye-camera http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/growaneweye/grow-a-new-eye