Salvador Dali Returns From the Dead in New Exhibition

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If you've ever wondered what Salvador Dali was like, then get yourself to The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida this spring for the chance to 'meet' the master of melting clocks.

No matter that the legendary surrealist artist has been dead these past 30 years - a groundbreaking collaboration between the museum and San Fran shop, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, will see him resurrected on screens for a new exhibition, Dali Lives.

Opening in April 2019, the exhibition combines AI techniques, machine learning and archival footage of the artist to produce a digital - but uncannily lifelike - version of the mustachioed maestro, who'll interact with visitors by welcoming them to the museum, sharing the motivations behind his masterpieces, and even offering observations on current events.

“Dali was prophetic in many ways and understood his historical importance,” says Dr. Hank Hine, executive director at The Dali. “He wrote: 'If someday I may die, though it is unlikely, I hope the people in the cafes will say, ‘Dali 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 immersive project involved collecting and sharing hundreds of interviews, quotes, and existing archival footage from the prolific artist, which the agency used to train an AI algorithm to 'learn' aspects of Dali’s face. This was then combined with the face and expressions of an actor of similar physical characteristics, performing Dali's own words from authentic texts.

It's not the first time AI has been used to resurrect a deceased celebrity, of course - Tupac famously kicked off the trend for stage holograms, while FCB Happiness brought back Carlsberg's founder J.C Jacobsen for a TEDx talk in 2017.