Abstract
This essay examines the recent controversy concerning the modelling of performing ‘holograms' on deceased singers in the USA and in Japan. Since the 2012 digital recreation of hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur, who died in 1996, ‘live’ concerts starring the holographic doubles of late, well-known singers such as Michael Jackson in 2014 and Whitney Houston in 2020 have been organised in the USA. In Japan, the public broadcaster NHK collaborated with Yamaha to produce a concert in 2019 that featured ‘AI Misora Hibari’, a synthetic double of the late Japanese singer Misora Hibari. Misora, who rose to fame in the period following World War II, is regarded as one of Japan's greatest singers of the 20th century. In this essay, I examine how the reception of AI Misora Hibari's performance paralleled and diverged from the reception of some of its Western counterparts, referring to the debates that sprang from live performances featuring the digital double of Tupac Shakur. This essay contributes to Sound and Robotics by highlighting the significance of voice, and the implications of culturally specific contexts for robotics research.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Sound and robotics |
| Subtitle of host publication | speech, non-verbal audio and robotic musicianship |
| Editors | Richard Savery |
| Place of Publication | Boca Raton ; London |
| Publisher | CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group |
| Chapter | 14 |
| Pages | 317-336 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781003320470, 9781000993615 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781032340845, 9781032340838 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |