Imagine legendary surrealist artist Salvador Dalí personally welcoming you to the museum, even sharing observations on current events and the motivations behind his masterpieces. The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida announced today, on the 30th anniversary of the artist’s death, that it will celebrate Dalí’s art and legacy with “Dalí Lives,” a groundbreaking experience to be unveiled exclusively at The Dalí in April 2019.
Visitors to the Museum will soon have the opportunity to learn more about Dalí’s life and work from the person who knew him best: the artist himself. Using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based cutting edge technique, the new “Dalí Lives” experience employs machine learning to create a version of Dalí’s likeness, resulting in an uncanny resurrection of the mustached master. When the experience opens, visitors will for the first time be able to interact with an engaging lifelike Salvador Dalí on a series of screens throughout the Museum.
“Dalí was prophetic in many ways and understood his historical importance,” says Dr. Hank Hine, executive director at The Dalí. “He wrote, If someday I may die, though it is unlikely, I hope the people in the cafés will say, ‘Dalí has died, but not entirely.’ This technology lets visitors experience his bigger-than-life personality in addition to our unparalleled collection of his works.”
The Dalí partnered with Goodby Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco (GS&P) to bring the master of Surrealism to life. The Museum began this immersive project by collecting and sharing hundreds of interviews, quotes, and existing archival footage from the prolific artist. GS&P used these extensive materials to train an AI algorithm to “learn” aspects of Dalí’s face, then looked for an actor with the same general physical characteristics of Dalí’s body. The AI then generates a version of Dalí’s likeness to match the actor’s face and expressions. To educate visitors while engaging with “Dalí Lives,” the Museum used authentic writings from Dalí himself – coupled with dynamic present-day messages – reenacted by the actor.
The “Dalí Lives” project further demonstrates the Museum’s commitment to staying on the forefront of technology, embracing new methods to engage guests in unconventional ways to delight and educate them about Salvador Dalí and his works. Sometimes controversial like Dalí himself, this emerging technology is being used for the first time in inspiring service to art.
To view the teaser videos and for additional information on “Dalí Lives” and The Dalí Museum, visit TheDali.org/DaliLives.
Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.
As a copywriter, I was responsible for writing the scripts for our resurrected Dalí. This particular piece of work involved a lot of research into Dalí’s persona, by watching hours of historic footage of the surrealist master and transcribing some of his sentences. To make sure our Dalí talked just like the real Dalí, we’ve used his own words, accent and cadence of speaking. We’ve mimicked his gestures, expressions and body language. Because we didn’t only want him to look like Dalí, but to be Dalí.
Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?
2019 marks the 30th year since the world lost Dalí. But we wanted it to also be the year the world got him back. So we’ve brought him back with a little help from an artificial-intelligence face-swap technique called “deepfake” to create an unprecedented experience at the Dalí Museum. Visitors will soon be welcomed by Dalí, be able to interact with Dalí and even hear his own perspective and stories about some of his masterpieces.
Tell us about the details creative brief, what did it ask?
The Dalí Museum wanted to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dalí’s death. Is there a better way to celebrate it than bringing him back?
Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?
When you go to a museum, you learn a lot about the pieces of art that are exhibited. But you never have a chance to meet, talk with or learn from the artist himself. We wanted to bring Dalí back to give the Dalí Museum’s visitors that unique opportunity.
Can you share with us any alternative ideas (if any) for this campaign? Why was this idea chosen?
There was none. That was it. We knew from the start that we had to make it happen.
What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development.
When you experiment with new technology like “deepfakes” and face-swap, there are a lot of challenges. This particular project started over a year ago, and since day one, it’s been a huge learning experience.
But just to point out a few of the challenges that went into bringing Dalí back, we’ve had to dig deep into hours of historic footage trying to find the ones that could give us the best result for the facial-reenactment technique; we’ve had to find an actor who had similar body traits as Dalí, but who could also emulate his gestures, posture and expressions. And, of course, the countless tests to learn how to push this technique to its limits in order to re-create the most realistic Dalí possible.
What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?
It’s been a very rich experience for sure. This project was a great way to show how powerful and inspiring this technique can be when applied toward a goal as noble as bringing back to life one of the most iconic artists the world has ever seen.
Where do you see this campaign going in the future?
There are more exciting things to come when the experience opens for the public at the Dalí Museum in April. You’ll see.