Technology & Music Today

Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Coachella

If you have been anywhere near a television, radio, computer, or smartphone you have no doubt heard about the rebirth of Mr. Tupac Shakur, although not in human form but close enough to it that the crowd was left speechless at Coachella last weekend as he made an appearance on the stage along with Rappers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.

I applaud this infusion of technology and music; with the current and recent state of music sales and the music industry this is an example of artist utilizing technology to breathe some life back into some of the musical monotony and while this is far from an answer to declining record sales and folding major record labels, with the price tag for the short resurrection exceeding one hundred thousand dollars. What has not been talked about in all of the commotion is the planning, project control and execution that went into making this spectacle a success.

According to Rolling Stone the image of Tupac that is being refereed to as a hologram it is actually a 2 dimensional image that is projected onto a reflective surface that is located on the stage and then it is bounced from their onto a piece of Mylar which ultimately produces the image that we see. While this show grabbed major headlines for the “Hologram” but what you may not know is this is not the first time it has been done in fact in June of 2009 Musion, the company behind the technology conducted the first ever transmission of “live interactive 3D holograms from London and Montreal to Orlando Florida”.  

I can honestly say that I do not envy the production manager of the possible tour that there have been talks about, while Snoop and Dre work out the logistics of what the show would entail to find out if it is worth the effort, I am positive that there is no shortage of companies trying to get in on the action.