Hello!
Yesterday’s post here on WIWN was about a new blog I’ve started (in addition to this one, and my VickyBeeching.com site!)
The new blog is called “CyberSoul” and it looks at the way technology is fast developing, and what this might mean for our spirituality and faith.
It’s a chance for my GEEKY side to come out!
Here’s an example of what I’m exploring over there…. if you like it, come to http://www.cyber-soul.com and join that community too!
“Could people worship a hologram pop star?!”
This may initially sound bizarre, but in Japan it’s already a huge epidemic.
“Hatsune Miko” has a huge following, a beautiful voice and a band of talented human musicians who tour with her. But she is….a hologram.
Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it before. (The video is slow and long! So just watch a few seconds to see her in action):
Apparently people flocked to her tour and as you can see in the video, they stood and waved their glow-sticks, responding as though she were a human pop star.
We saw a little taste of this with Damon Albarn’s “Gorillaz” a few years back, although they weren’t 3D holograms. Here they are appearing with Madonna (this video might be a bit risky for some after a few minutes…so feel free not to watch it all):
With Gorillaz or the Japanese hologram, it’s easy to tell they aren’t truly human and aren’t physically present.
But what if it could get so real that even we got fooled?
The Japanese public were shocked to find out that they had been taken in by another computer generated singer:
“AKB48 is Japan’s most popular female pop group. With give-or-take 48 members, its latest member is Aimi Eguchi, who has rocketed from obscurity to become the poster girl for a Japanese ice candy, Ice no Mi. Now revealed as a computer composite of other girls in the group, she appears below (see video):
See if you can tell the difference and pick the computer generated girl from the real ones:
I couldn’t tell. Apparently she’s the girl that you see precisely 4 seconds in. It’s fascinating that something we’ve invented can then fool us.
If we think the areas we are discussing these days – relationships, gender, marriage etc – are complex, imagine how much more we’ll have to navigate when people begin falling in love with holograms, who through haptic technology they can touch and feel they genuinely know. What will our ethics be on that?! Would it be socially acceptable to spend hours in virtual reality, building a relationship with a computer generated ‘person’? Could you marry a haptic hologram if you wanted to? Today kids in Japan are gazing adoringly at a singing cyber-projection. What will that turn into in five years, or in fifty years, I wonder…?
Singer Chris Brown’s song “Hologram” uses the term as an analogy, to describe a woman he can’t quite connect with. But it seems oddly likely that this might one day become reality for some people:
“Hologram, I’m pushing up close
But it’s hard to get to ya.
Hologram,
There’s a glitch in the system
Tell me what I gotta do now” (source: http://tinyurl.com/6egckfu)
Over to you:
- Do you think we’ll be dealing with more computer generated ‘people’ in the future, or do you think I’m just full of crazy ideas?!
- What would you do if your future grandchild told you they were in love, then you found out the person was computer generated, only existed in virtual reality and was a hologram? Would you wish you were back in 2011 dealing with issues we’ve got on our plate?!
- The more we see computer generated images of men and women, the more it will affect our sense of self-worth, as they are created to be physically ‘perfect’. Do you struggle with all the airbrushed people seen in the media and the effect they have on us?
- Would you pay money to go and watch a hologram perform with a band?
- What are your thoughts on all that I’ve said in this post?
- Vicky
(come and join the comments section on THIS post over at CyberSoul! http://www.cyber-soul.com/2011/07/02/japan-flocks-to-see-a-hologram-pop-star )
