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dalí lives – inspiring interactive art

When I first read about this piece of work, I was extremely flabbergasted by how well it was executed, as well as how technology and art have both been appropriately employed to create something beautiful and astonishing!

Salvador Dalí has left us for more than 30 years now, yet the dalí museum has brought him ‘back to life’ with an amazing creation of a digital persona that feels, looks and sounds like him! This persona greets and interacts with visitors in a very lifelike and personable manner. It feels really special as Dalí has obviously not known anyone living in this time of day, yet everything about this pseudo interaction looks and feels real enough.

The studio behind this feat has employed A.I.(or machine learning) to first go through all archival footage of him, and managed to extract the way he speaks and his facial expressions. Armed with this knowledge they have been able to procedurally and dynamically re-create a digital version of his face. This is similar to how Gollum is created from Andy Serkis’ facial performance in the Lord of the Rings series. With the lifelike model in hand, digital Dalí can be pre-programmed to say or act in any way.

By further layering many different performances, dialogues and gestures, visitors will receive a tailored, unique Dalí reception every day of the week! But the next mind-blowing aspect of the whole experience was that visitors can actually pose and take a virtual selfie with the famous man himself! This blurring of digital and physical reality has been masterfully achieved in the simple humble act of a selfie. With that, the deal is sealed, and the happy visitor gets to go home with a piece of techno-historical artifact.

Read more about it!