If Salvador Dalí Died in 1989, Then Why Can He Still Take a Selfie With You?
When you walk into the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, Dalí himself will greet you. He appears on a life-sized screen, mustache waxed, and talks about his life and his work. He tells anecdotes. He answers questions in
Entering the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, visitors are greeted by a life-sized screen portraying Dalí himself. Equipped with a mustache, the digital Dalí regales guests with anecdotes and answers questions. Despite Dalí passing away in 1989, the museum claims to offer an encounter with the artist like never before.
This is made possible through an artificial intelligence system trained on thousands of images and videos, meticulously replicating Dalí's facial expressions, body movements, speech patterns, and mannerisms. The result is a digital reanimation of the artist, allowing him to seemingly "live on" through the "Dalí Lives" exhibition.
While the claim that this digital Dalí is truly the artist may seem questionable, it is the culmination of leveraging the vast archive of Dalí's media to train the AI, reconstructing his physical traits and mannerisms. This reanimation goes beyond mere resemblance, as the AI generates entirely new footage of Dalí engaging in activities he never performed.
This creates new images that are not bound by the artist's past, enabling Dalí to take questions in real time through a replica of his lobster telephone. The museum's "mass intimacy" concept highlights how digital life blurs the lines between individualized experiences and mass engagement.
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