Kiss Rocks the Digital World: George Lucas’ IL&M Makes Band Virtual Avatars!
Kiss concluded their “The End of the Road” farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Saturday night. However, as loyal fans may have anticipated, the band had no intention of truly retiring. In a surprising twist during their encore, the current lineup of Kiss, including Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer, exited the stage to unveil digital representations of themselves. Following this transformation, the virtual Kiss proceeded to deliver an energetic rendition of “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.”
Cutting-edge technology was used to tease a new chapter in a rock band: 50 years after Kiss, the band is now interested in a kind of digital immortality.
Avatars were created by George Lucas’ special effects company Industrial Light & Magic in collaboration with Pophouse Entertainment Group, the latter of which was co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. The two companies recently teamed up for the ‘ABBA Voyage’ show in London, where fans could attend the Swedish band’s entire concert – performed by their digital avatars.
Pophouse Entertainment CEO Per Sundin says this new technology will allow Kiss to continue their legacy “into eternity.” He says the band wasn’t on stage during the virtual performance because “that’s the key thing” in the technology looking to the future. “Kissi could have a concert in three cities on the same night on three different continents. That’s what you could do with this.”
To create their digital avatars, depicted as a kind of superhero version of the band, Kiss performed in motion-capture costumes.
Experimentation with this kind of technology has become more common in certain parts of the music industry. In October, K-pop star Mark Tuan teamed up with Soul Machines to create an autonomously automated “digital twin” called “Digital Mark.” In doing so, Tuan became the first celebrity to link his likeness to OpenAI’s GPT integration, an artificial intelligence technology that allows fans to engage in one-on-one conversations with Tuan’s Avatar.
K-pop girl group Aespa often appear alongside their digital avatars – the quartet is meant to be seen as an octet with digital twins. Another girl group, Eternity, is made up entirely of virtual characters – no humans needed.
“What we have achieved has been great, but it is not enough. The band deserves to live because the band is bigger than us, Kiss frontman Paul Stanley said in a round table interview. “It’s exciting for us to go to the next stage and see Kiss immortalized.”
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” added Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. “Technology makes Paul jump higher than he ever has.”
And for those who couldn’t make it to the Madison Square Garden show – stay tuned, because a Kiss avatar concert might very well be coming.
