Like so many composers, artists, and other great historical figures who existed before the invention of photography, the only way we can have a vague idea of what they were like in appearance he is relying on the artistic renderings of his creative peers in paint and marble of the time.
But what if we could have photographed the greats of history? Well, luckily for us, we don’t have to imagine as much anymore thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Brazilian artist Hidreley Diao (@hidreley) has been using various AI algorithms to bring photographic life to portraits and sculptures by Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare and more, posting the mesmerizing results on their Instagram page.
Take the Statue of Liberty itself as an example. It is a national symbol of the United States and is recognized throughout the world, and the tourist attraction receives millions of visitors each year. Described as an “icon,” the colossal 93-meter statue looks out over New York from its pedestal on Ellis Island. Hidreley Leli Dião used technology to reimagine the statue as a flesh and blood woman.
“With the advent of artificial intelligence we realized that ‘almost’ anything is possible. So I challenged myself to bring these historical figures to today,” the artist explained. “When choosing the character, what takes the most time is to find an image that resembles the historical character. I spend hours in image banks until get it. I always say that finding the perfect image to be the basis of the art takes much longer than making the art.”
The artist uses Artbreeder to generate images and FaceApp to finalize them. In this process superimposes the real image of the statue with the image used and little by little he brings it to life, always starting with the eyes. Dião says that the most time-consuming part is finding an image that resembles the historical figure. Each image takes about 2 hours to make.
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Images: Hidreley Diao (@hidreley)