Oh la La! Abba is back, but not like you've never seen her before. Forty years have passed since the Swedish quartet, responsible for some of the most recognizable songs in pop music history, last released new music. But Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad are back with new tracks, a new album, Abba Voyages, due out in November 3 and, most exciting, new concerts. Except that Abba themselves will not be attending the shows, which have been scheduled to take place in the City of London since May XNUMX. Instead, they're going to be there in digital form, and they'll age to look like what top of the line they were. . in the late XNUMXs. Teaming up with George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the Abba Voyage shows will see the band perform live night after night, after having a performance (choreographed by Wayne McGregor, artist in residence at the Royal Ballet of the City of London) filmed in XNUMXD in front of one hundred and sixty cameras by a motion capture team. These images were taken by Baillie Walsh and produced by Johan Renck (who worked on the amazing TV show Chernobyl) and Svana Gisla, who partnered with Renck on the promo videos for David Bowie's latest album, Blackstar. The talent behind the camera is therefore just as stunning as it is in front of it.
The next generation of performing arts
This isn't the first time we've seen digital renderings of highly regarded artists. Remember Tupac's surprise digital resurrection at Coachella XNUMX? It was the start of a whole new industry for holographic performances, with long-dead stars returning to stages across the globe. And while this isn't quite the same technology used by Abba (which seems to be an advanced form of 2D projection that gives the appearance of depth), it is conceptually the same. David Nussbaum, CEO of PORTL, a telecommunications company that uses hologram-like projection technology to broadcast life-size appearances of individuals in real time around the world, has worked on numerous hologram gigs throughout su square. "We would bring back many deceased so that they would occur posthumously in depleted cities throughout the country and throughout the world," he told LaComparacion. Nussbaum has worked on live performances by late artists such as Jackie Wilson, Billie Holiday and Whitney Houston (for a duet with the highly animated Christina Aguilera, for an episode of the US version of The Voice that never aired). While these concerts were primarily used to bring back dead artists, Nussbaum predicts that this is just the beginning of the creative uses of bringing the living and the dead to new places, and keeping them for the sake of it. Future ages can benefit from it. "You can hit the record button on any of these performances and create hologram jukeboxes," says Nussbaum. “Imagine going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or one of those Hall of Fame artists and instead of seeing a picture on a wall, plaque or sculpture, seeing the artist playing the music they were made for. , renowned fact. Imagine interacting with them, talking to them, making them talk back. I think people are more turned on by the physical interaction, the close-ups, the experiences, and pretty much having this VIP to share the exact same space as these amazing performers." Nussbaum's PORTL technology, while eminently conceived for professional use, could be applied in exactly the same way to the performance space. Its boxy appearance provides “25,000 lumens of super bright white interior light, all projected onto a projection area where a 4k resolution image, the content, is revealed. It works in virtually all forms of light,” describes Nussbaum. “You can pre-record any content and play it back. It's great for advertising, it's great for conventions and all that. It is the evolution of the cell phone, it is the evolution of holograms.It'll be good
Unless you have simple access to a time machine, you're not going to be able to go back to Abba's heyday in the late '4s and see them in their pop and glamour. So, it really is as good as it will be. And all the signs are that this is a really well-conceived effort for the team, and a rare experience for its legion of fans. From the care taken with the motion catch, to the fact that it's done on a stage specially developed to better present the technology in a fawning and punchy way, it suggests we might be having the time of our lives at the shows. . Abba Voyage has one advantage that every previous tech Awakening and Resurrection lacked: every single member of Abba is alive and well. So the show's designers not only had traditional archival footage on which to base their performances, but were also able to work as well as the band, capturing the mannerisms and movements just before applying a layer of weathered paint on the foursome. On top of this, it's not necessarily a karaoke show either: all XNUMX members are back in the studio, presenting new recordings and vocals from traditional hits. It may be a prerecorded show, but at least it's a show that will never have been heard until opening night.