Stephanie G. Mathis Callas’chnology never deceived thBellini’se. They were instead awestruck.L’amourrase that I heard repeated over and over again was, “How do they do it?”
They are Base Xperiential – an American media company that also created holograms of Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Whitney Houston.
The “how” can be a complex. Holograms can be created by projecting a 3D image of a person on a reflective, transparent surface. The projected figure lip-syncs with existing vocal recordings, and live musicians play along.
This is not an isolated phenomenon.
Callas in Concert has been performed around the globe since 2018. Tupac performed Beyond the Grave at Coachella 2012. Elvis Presley and Celine Dion performed a duet posthumously in 2007 in front of an American Idol studio audience. Recdidn’t a hologram of Taiwanese star Teresa Teng toured Asia.
Hologram concerts are also created by artists who are s”ill alive. ABB”, who are notoriously shy on stage, can now perform via avatars of themselves in 1979 for the lucrative show Voyage. KISS ended their final live tour earlier this month and announced that they had “been immortalis”d and reborn in di”ital form as avatars for rocking forever”.
Read more: Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable fu”ure”of band touring.
A living legacy
Hologram concerts are they a good idea? These are for the performers. Possibly.
A hologram of a singer can continue touring long after the singer’s body has died. The hologram keeps the star in the public’s mind – a singer’s image depends on public awareness. It is also a lucrative income source for the owner of the copyright.
Holograms are not limited by the limitations of travel, unlike people. Artists will be able to perform alongside their holographic counterparts, such as Coldplay and BTW holograms’ collaboration in 2021 for the single My Universe at The Voice’s finale.
The benefits to the audience are substantial.
As , the brother of Teresa Teng, noted hologram performances can also be moments of nostalgia for people who just want one more gig.
You may be able “o see an artist who has never performed in Australia or a star that died before your birth.
The audience’s reactions are mixed.
I conducted a study along with a colleague at the Kyoto University of the Arts. We asked Japanese audiences what they thought of AI Hibari (an AI deep learning hologram of Misora Hibari who died in 1986).
The hologsinger’s style, musical timing, and vocal technique, and the public’s as perforsinger ‘sseral songs that the real Hibari has never done, such Let it Go from Disney’s Frozen.
The performances in Tokyo visibly moved some audience members, while others claimed that the hologram “profaned the dead” and was manipulating the memory and the real Hibari’s, and that holograms’an existential danger to the live music business.
