



Introduction





From Amy Winehouse to Tupac Shakur, many deceased celebrities are being exhumed to perform once again for the adoring masses. Companies such as Hologram USA and Pulse Evolution are at the forefront of this new technology; however, ethical and legal concerns still plague the industry. Finally, I believe that the rise of post-humous celebrity holograms is also indicative of the push our culture has towards post-modernism and nostalgia.





How it works





The dead celebrities are created by using a technique called Pepper’s Ghost, which was created by Henry Dircks and John Henry Pepper in 1862. Pepper’s Ghost works by lighting the room where the target object is located and then it is reflected onto an angled piece of glass, which reflects it onto the stage. In the mid-1990s, German Inventor Uwe Maass improved on Pepper’s Ghost by replacing the glass with a stretched translucent foil and a hidden performer projected with high-def video.





How Dead Celebrities are Recreated as Holograms

The hologram performance is created by using an individual with a similar build to the deceased, is filmed with motion capture markers in front of a green screen and they have the subject create basic movements that will be later used for the hologram. The data from the motion capture is then combined with archival footage and even 3D scans, to create a computer-generated likeness of the celebrity. The video is finally projected to a mirror to the foot of the stage that is bounced back onto a thin reflective material that pushes the subject onto the vision of the audience.





Legal & Ethical Concerns





The dead celebrity hologram industry has also invited many ethical and legal concerns. These concerns include the following: ownership of the deceased’s image, ownership of revenue, and contract disputes. In the U.S, “right to publicity” gives the deceased’s estate the right to profit from their likeness; many states have laws their own laws stating that the likeness and image of the deceased should be in the control of the estate. For example, California extends the right to publicity for 50 years, whereas New York ends the right to publicity immediately after death. Australia and the United Kingdom have specific protections for the right to publicity, both countries have laws against having the deceased appear to endorse a product or service.





Auctions, merchandising, holographic performances, and releasing unreleased tracks are some opportunities for the estate to generate more income for the fans to enjoy the artist’s performance and even honor him/her in a way. However, there are concerns that post-humous performances will do more to dishonor the dead, especially as time goes on.





Postmodernism and holographic simulacra





Frederic Jameson’s comparison of Van Gogh’s A Pair of Shoes and Andy Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes, he states “… between the shoes of Van Gogh and the shoes of Andy Warhol, on which we must now very briefly dwell. The first and most evident is the emergence of a new kind of flatness or depthlessness, a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense, perhaps the supreme formal feature of all the Postmodernisms to which we will have occasion to return in a number of other contexts.” Frederic Jameson states that you can see the struggle and the hardship of the peasant can be seen by the colors in the painting, whereas, in “Diamond Dust Shoes”, the many shoes in the image are uniform and the lack of color does not lend to any depth in the piece. The deceased holograms touring the world are much like Warhol’s “Diamond Dust Shoes”, they lack the death the original celebrities had. They may look and even sound like the deceased, but they will never be Amy Winehouse, or Tupac Shakur because those illusions would never experience their lives or never be able to release original songs.





"Peasant Shoes" vs "Diamond Shoes"









Finally, Charles Jencks observed that post-modernist architects utilize straight revivalism in architecture. Straight revivalism is when the past styles are mimicked for the sake of being mimicked instead of being critiqued or improved upon. Frederic Jameson also agrees with this sentiment as he views post-modernist art as a shallow imitation of the past, or a pastiche. The deceased holographic celebrities are also a pastiche because they are a shallow imitation of the individuals they are copying. This trend is also, in part, fueled by people’s need to escape into nostalgia due to the chaotic political era we are in and by companies wanting to make a safe investment, banking on old musical icons.





Ending Remarks





In conclusion, a modernized Pepper’s Ghost is used to create the celebrity holograms preforming today. A bcody double creates the movements that the hologram would mimic on stage. Despite the many legal and ethical concerns with this new technology, it will still become more prevalent in the future. Finally, the advent of these deceased celebrity holograms further echoes the post-modern strait our culture is in right now due to the lack of depth of the simulacrum and the fact that it attempts to mimic dead icons for the purpose of nostalgia.





Works Cited





Clifton, Jacob. “How Do They Make Those Projections of Dead Celebrities and Politicians?” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 31 Oct. 2012, electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/projections-of-dead-celebrities-and-politicians1.htm.





Donoughue, Paul. “Dead Musicians Are Touring Again, as Holograms. It's Tricky - Technologically and Legally.” ABC News, Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation, 28 Dec. 2018, www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-29/hologram-technology-letting-dead-musicians-tour-again/10600996.





Famurewa, Jimi. “Inside the Bitter War to Bring Tupac and Michael Jackson Back to Life.” WIRED, WIRED UK, 11 May 2018, www.wired.co.uk/article/tupac-michael-jackson-billie-holiday-dead-celebrity-holograms.



