Sticking a syringe in your hand and injecting a microchip into your flesh might sound slightly unnerving. But there’s a growing number of people doing just that. Biohackers, people who modify their body with technology like chip implants, are going to tattoo parlors, conferences, and “implant parties” to get these kinds of devices implanted. While meshing machine with human flesh sounds outlandish to some, biohackers consider themselves pioneers and argue the practice is actually the natural progression of how we will interact with technology.
“The human body is the next big platform. The connected body is already a phenomena. And this implant is just a part of it,” Hannes Sjöblad, founder of the Swedish biohacking group Bionyfiken, told Tech Insider in an interview.
Sjöblad has helped host these gatherings in Mexico, France, Greece, Germany, England, Denmark, and even in the United States.
A lot of times these parties are hosted as part of a larger conference related to tech or body modification. But Sjöblad said a growing number of companies are also beginning to request these parties so that their employees can get implanted. Bionyfiken has already helped one Swedish company called Epicenter fit some of its employees with NFC tags.