Salvador Dalí, surrealism artist and the creator of the incredibly famous painting The Persistence of Memory (the one with the clocks melting all over the place), passed away in 1989. But that doesn’t mean visitors to the Dalí Museum can’t experience the famous artist first-hand! The museum has quite literally recreated Dalí in the digital world, in a life-sized screen showing a life-sized image of Dalí. Dalí will interact with users in ways such as commenting on the actual weather outside the museum, telling his life stories, and actually even taking a selfie with viewers, which can then be texted to them after.
How does this work? The creators first found an actor with similar body shape and such to be the base for Dalí. Second, they took footage from dozens of interviews and snapshots of Dalí’s face, using an artificial intelligence program to overlay this on the actor’s face. Finally, every letter the actor spoke was overlayed from a voice actor, who could mimic Dalí’s exact accent. Unfortunately, this is centered in Spain, so we Americans must be content with videos and pictures.