Celebrity Holograms

Submission 4,450

Overview

Celebrity Holograms refers to a trend in live music performances where in which unavailable, deceased or fictitious artists are represented by the photographic illusion known as holography.

Background

In 1947, Hungarian electrical engineer Dennis Gabor invented holography, the act of creating three-dimensional images through a lens.^[1]

One of the earliest examples of the holography being used for live entertainment was on February 6th, 2006 at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards. During the ceremony Madonna and animation-based pop music act Gorlliaz performed on stage together, with Gorillaz being represented through holograms (shown below).^[2]

Development

Additionally in 2006, Kate Moss appeared in holographic for the Alexander McQueen fashion show in London.^[3]

Tupac Hologram

On April 15th, 2012, at the Coachella Music Festival, rapper and recording artist Snoop Dogg performed with a hologram of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur. According to The Undefeated,^[4] the process of developing the technology for this type of performance was difficult. They wrote:

"That’s what Janelle Croshaw, visual effects supervisor of Academy Award-winning studio Digital Domain, said she thought to herself in the moment. For six weeks, Croshaw, along with fellow supervisor Steve Preeg and their team, had worked tirelessly to make what seemed psychologically, and spiritually, unfathomable: They had to recreate Tupac Amaru Shakur."

Amy Winehouse Hologram

On October 11th, 2018, Amy Winhouse's father, Mitch, announced that a hologram of deceased recording artist Amy Winehouse would be the center of a 2019 worldwide tour. He said of the announcement, "To see her perform again is something special that really can’t be put into words. Our daughter’s music touched the lives of millions of people and it means everything that her legacy will continue in this innovative and groundbreaking way."^[5]^[6]

The show, which is expected to run about 75 to 110 minutes in length, will raise money for the Amy Winhouse Foundation, "a charity young people about drug and alcohol misuse, provides support for those at risk and supports the development of disadvantaged young people through music."

Grimes Hologram

On April 23rd, 2019, Flaunt^[7] magazine released an interview with recording artist Grimes. During the interview, the artist expressed a desire to do a hologram tour in which a digital rendering of the artist perfroms for audiences. She said, "I wanna retire from touring. I wanna do a hologram tour. Why do we keep doing them for dead artists instead of living ones who have stage fright?"

Following the numerous reports of the proposed hologram tour, many mocked Grimes online. Twitter^[8] user @maaarktim tweeted, "eyes rolling into OBLIVION" (shown below, left). Twitter^[9] user @REALiTiGENESiS tweeted a No One variation (shown below, center).

Twitter^[10] user @noahlove tweeted, a series of opinions on the interview. He wrote, "An Elon Musk-funded, K-pop-styled Grimes hologram tour, presented by The Boring Company, promoting a record that might come out in 2019, coming to an arena near you in 2021 (it takes a while to code these things)." The post received more tahn 85 retweets and 770 likes in less than one week (shown below, right).