This past weekend, Tupac performed live on stage at the Coachella music festival. As the artist was murdered way back in 1996, this was strange, to say the least. Tupac was raised from the dead with a combination of twenty-first century computer generation and nineteenth-century optical illusions, as detailed by The Wall Street Journal1.
It’s actually a helpful “How-To”.
You can view the video on YouTube (archived here), though be forewarned, the audio is decidedly not work- or kid-safe.
Creepy.
Advances in multiple technical areas have been combined in a way that is both interesting and impressive. However, it’s the philosophical impact that is perhaps most striking. The chief creative officer at the company responsible for the illusion spoke to Business Week, and one quote is truly disturbing.
As technology advances, Ulbrich thinks digital projections of living, dead, and fictional people may become more common. His goal is to one day create a hologram that people won’t realize is fake. “Nothing is real and everything is possible,” he says.
That is simply not a noble goal.
Footnotes:
What? Where do you get your hip-hop related news? Be sure to watch the WSJ video at the top for an incredibly awkward two minutes. It includes what is likely the only utterance of the phrase “thugz mansion” ever associated with the Journal. ↩︎
