Today (May 11), we celebrate the 115th birth anniversary of the renowned Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Dalí was born on May 11, 1904 and died on Jan 23, 1989. His wide artistic repertoire included painting, sculpture, writing, photography and film.
Dalí once said in an interview, “I believe in general in death, but in the death of Dali, absolutely not.” In an interesting and bizarre twist, the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, has worked to fulfill the painter’s prophecy by bringing him back to life in a new exhibition called Dali Lives. The exhibition features a video-based interacting resurrection of Dalí, created using deepfake, a technique for creating realistic videos using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
According to the museum, many hours of archival film footage of Dalí were used to train the AI system, which learned to mimic his facial expressions, mannerisms and accent. His facial expressions were imposed over an actor with Dalí’s body proportions, and quotes from his interviews and letters were synced with a voice actor who could mimic his unique accent, a mix of French, Spanish, and English.
The final product is a virtual Dalí who can interact with guests, share stories from his life and chat about the weather.
At the end of the session where visitors interact with Dalí, the figure asks if the guests would like to take a picture with him. Dalí then pulls out a smartphone and takes a selfie with the whole group and shows it to the viewers. In an especially crowd-pleasing move, he then offers to have the selfie texted to them.
Take a look at the video below and see how you feel about this experiment and the use of deepfake technology. How it bridges the gap between the viewer and the artist.
The Dali Museum
The Salvador Dalí Museum is located in St. Petersburg, Florida. It houses the largest collection of Dalí's works outside Europe. Check out their web and twitter site for more info. I have not visited the museum, but have it on my list of places to visit.
Here is an interesting 360 degree “immersive” way to experience Dalí’s paintings. Use the mouse to pan around in 360 degrees and to zoom in and out.
A Few Tributes
A Few Dalí Paintings and Videos
His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931 -
Quotes
- Don’t fear perfection, you will never reach it.
- What’s the secret to success? Giving the right honey to the right fly at the right time and place.
- Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
- Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings
- Life is too short to remain unnoticed
- So little of what could happen does happen.
- The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.
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- A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others
- Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.
- Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision
- Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad
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- The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.
- Great wine requires a mad man to grow the vine, a wise man to watch over it, a lucid poet to make it, and a lover to drink it.
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- At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since
- The fact I myself do not understand what my paintings mean while I am painting them does not imply that they are meaningless.
- The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.
- I don't do drugs. I am drugs
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Epilogue
This is certainly a novel use of deepfake technology, that too in the art world, whose primary objective is to preserve and present the past accurately and faithfully. As we all know, the deepfake technology can be and has been used to create embarrassing celebrity porn and political propaganda. Technology is a double-edged sword and it is up to us to use it or to abuse it.
Also, take a look at my earlier diary “Immersive Art” at www.dailykos.com/… for other novel ways in which museums are using technology to spruce up art, especially for younger audiences.
What do you think of Salvador Dalí, his artworks, his eccentric and flamboyant life? Where does he rank among the artists you admire the most? Have you visited the Dali Museum in FL or the Teatro Museo in Dalí’s hometown Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain?
Further Reading
- thedali.org
- The Surreal World of Salvador Dalí — www.smithsonianmag.com/…
- Deepfake Salvador Dalí takes selfies with museum visitors — www.theverge.com/…
- Wiki page — en.wikipedia.org/…
- Paintings — www.pinterest.com/...
- Immersive Art — www.dailykos.com/...