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Friday, April 15, 2022
Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring
theconversation.com: It was a technological feat that made history, wowed audiences and brought a dead rapper back to life. In April 2012 at the Coachella festival in California, Tupac Shakur took to the stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. He’d been dead for 16 years, killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.
This is a difficult topic, I feel the idea of having artists' holograms being able to perform on stage is both good and bad. Firstly, for those artists who died tragically, young, or both, it is a way for them still to perform and be seen. At the same time, is that honoring their memory? These people aren’t around to consent to this. Yes they consented a long time ago to their image being used, but it's not like the money being made off these concerts is going to them, it's going to their families or trusts and just sitting there. If these concerts were free or just going to the tech people so tickets were incredibly affordable, that might be a different story. I feel like you're not getting the same experience. Even in a case like ABBA, these people aren’t the real people. The holograms can’t interact in the same way a live performer can, and even if you could have someone who controlled them, it wouldn't be the real person in the case of a dead artist.
I have mixed feelings about the implementation of this kind of technology. As a kid, I remember seeing videos of Hatsune Miku concerts and thinking all the disapproving adults were just close-minded and could not appreciate the physical manifestation of something that only really existed on a computer. While it is exciting to me to have live performances from AI or other non-human creators/performers, resurrecting dead artists makes me uncomfortable and feels a little sacrilegious. I think part of being an artist or an enjoyer of live entertainment comes with the acceptance that time passes and things change, and living in the present is crucial. As far as virtual “metaverse” tours, while I understand the benefits for the artist and appreciate the eco-friendly factor, I would not personally be interested in them unless maybe I could wear an Oculus type of headset and download a really amazing outfit for my avatar to wear.
No doubt advancing technology is closely tied to performing arts, for better or worse. I personally really like the band ABBA and having listened to it since I was a child definitely makes their digital performance appealing. But I also feel like we don’t have to bring back artists who have already passed away in the form of avatars. I think we can still remember and appreciate their music differently. On the other hand, I do support the idea of using technology to have virtual performances. Especially with the pandemic, we are now spending so much more time at home and travelling has become hard. Additionally, I also think the idea of AI composing music in artists’ styles can have interesting outcomes, though I certainly see it more as entertainment rather than actual music-making. While the future of performing arts seems promising and more creative than ever, I do hope that we don’t lose our old techniques, especially those traditional cultural ones.
Though this new technology is mind-blowing and very cool, I believe that this exists in a very gray area of what is good and bad. This kind of high tech can be kind of creepy and this progression can become dangerous in the wrong hands and times. Sure it is cool to see a hologram of Tupac, especially from fans that miss him, but it should not go further than that. For example, the ABBA aging themselves younger does not really sit right with me. Though I understand that it is for the nostalgia and fun, it can easily be used as a way to catfish and hurt people in the wrong hands. For me at least, it is down right scary that technology is able to do that. I already see this implemented in American society with the use of realistic filters that simply exist on instagram. Leading into the Metaverse, I think that it is fun to be able to create your own avatar, but you must remember it is simply a game. If people get too wrapped up in this, they will start to believe that their avatar is actually them, and other dangerous scenarios might start affecting real society.
I am really concerned about the concept of creating likenesses of dead people that are meant to perform in general. I think it’s important to acknowledge how sacred life is and how sacred death is because these people were not meant to be “reborn” in a computer to entertain the masses. Just in general this feels really inappropriate, especially for Tupac as he was murdered and never gained justice. I think it’s really bad for rich white peoples to do this for non-white artists aswell. It just feels like a sort of puppetry that is genuinely disrespectful and downright uncomfortable. These were real people who were oppressed and created art about that only for the oppressor to decide to use their likeness for fun after they’ve died. I just feel really weird about it. I hope people will give the idea more thought because it sounds like a sloppy attempt at making this metaverse stuff sound cooler than it is. I just feel off put by it.
In 7th and 8th grade I was a huge star wars fan. This was around the time of Carrie Fisher's death, something that deeply upset me. There were lots of talks about how the movie series would continue, as Princess Leia had not died in the films yet. The solution? CGI Carrie Fisher. This was something I had mixed feelings about. It felt disrespectful to recreate someone who had passed on, for capitalist purposes. She was not being honored by being recreated but used as a tool to further the story, and the story exists to make Disney money. It is also dangerous territory as the person who has passed on has no say in how they are portrayed. Their image can be used for anything, things they might not even support. What also scares me is, if this can happen for dead people, can it happen for those who are alive? Recently, there have been videos surfacing called "deep-fakes", where people create CGI videos of real, living people to spread false information. The possibilities are endless, which is horrifying.
6 comments:
This is a difficult topic, I feel the idea of having artists' holograms being able to perform on stage is both good and bad. Firstly, for those artists who died tragically, young, or both, it is a way for them still to perform and be seen. At the same time, is that honoring their memory? These people aren’t around to consent to this. Yes they consented a long time ago to their image being used, but it's not like the money being made off these concerts is going to them, it's going to their families or trusts and just sitting there. If these concerts were free or just going to the tech people so tickets were incredibly affordable, that might be a different story. I feel like you're not getting the same experience. Even in a case like ABBA, these people aren’t the real people. The holograms can’t interact in the same way a live performer can, and even if you could have someone who controlled them, it wouldn't be the real person in the case of a dead artist.
I have mixed feelings about the implementation of this kind of technology. As a kid, I remember seeing videos of Hatsune Miku concerts and thinking all the disapproving adults were just close-minded and could not appreciate the physical manifestation of something that only really existed on a computer. While it is exciting to me to have live performances from AI or other non-human creators/performers, resurrecting dead artists makes me uncomfortable and feels a little sacrilegious. I think part of being an artist or an enjoyer of live entertainment comes with the acceptance that time passes and things change, and living in the present is crucial. As far as virtual “metaverse” tours, while I understand the benefits for the artist and appreciate the eco-friendly factor, I would not personally be interested in them unless maybe I could wear an Oculus type of headset and download a really amazing outfit for my avatar to wear.
No doubt advancing technology is closely tied to performing arts, for better or worse. I personally really like the band ABBA and having listened to it since I was a child definitely makes their digital performance appealing. But I also feel like we don’t have to bring back artists who have already passed away in the form of avatars. I think we can still remember and appreciate their music differently. On the other hand, I do support the idea of using technology to have virtual performances. Especially with the pandemic, we are now spending so much more time at home and travelling has become hard. Additionally, I also think the idea of AI composing music in artists’ styles can have interesting outcomes, though I certainly see it more as entertainment rather than actual music-making. While the future of performing arts seems promising and more creative than ever, I do hope that we don’t lose our old techniques, especially those traditional cultural ones.
Though this new technology is mind-blowing and very cool, I believe that this exists in a very gray area of what is good and bad. This kind of high tech can be kind of creepy and this progression can become dangerous in the wrong hands and times. Sure it is cool to see a hologram of Tupac, especially from fans that miss him, but it should not go further than that. For example, the ABBA aging themselves younger does not really sit right with me. Though I understand that it is for the nostalgia and fun, it can easily be used as a way to catfish and hurt people in the wrong hands. For me at least, it is down right scary that technology is able to do that. I already see this implemented in American society with the use of realistic filters that simply exist on instagram. Leading into the Metaverse, I think that it is fun to be able to create your own avatar, but you must remember it is simply a game. If people get too wrapped up in this, they will start to believe that their avatar is actually them, and other dangerous scenarios might start affecting real society.
I am really concerned about the concept of creating likenesses of dead people that are meant to perform in general. I think it’s important to acknowledge how sacred life is and how sacred death is because these people were not meant to be “reborn” in a computer to entertain the masses. Just in general this feels really inappropriate, especially for Tupac as he was murdered and never gained justice. I think it’s really bad for rich white peoples to do this for non-white artists aswell. It just feels like a sort of puppetry that is genuinely disrespectful and downright uncomfortable. These were real people who were oppressed and created art about that only for the oppressor to decide to use their likeness for fun after they’ve died. I just feel really weird about it. I hope people will give the idea more thought because it sounds like a sloppy attempt at making this metaverse stuff sound cooler than it is. I just feel off put by it.
In 7th and 8th grade I was a huge star wars fan. This was around the time of Carrie Fisher's death, something that deeply upset me. There were lots of talks about how the movie series would continue, as Princess Leia had not died in the films yet. The solution? CGI Carrie Fisher. This was something I had mixed feelings about. It felt disrespectful to recreate someone who had passed on, for capitalist purposes. She was not being honored by being recreated but used as a tool to further the story, and the story exists to make Disney money. It is also dangerous territory as the person who has passed on has no say in how they are portrayed. Their image can be used for anything, things they might not even support. What also scares me is, if this can happen for dead people, can it happen for those who are alive? Recently, there have been videos surfacing called "deep-fakes", where people create CGI videos of real, living people to spread false information. The possibilities are endless, which is horrifying.
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