Imagine legendary surrealist artist Salvador Dalí personally welcoming you to his museum, even sharing observations on current events and the motivations behind his masterpieces. The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida announced today, on the 30th anniversary of the artist’s death, that it will celebrate Dalí’s art and legacy with “Dalí Lives,” a groundbreaking experience to be unveiled exclusively at The Dalí in April 2019.

Visitors to the Museum will soon have the opportunity to learn more about Dalí’s life and work from the person who knew him best: the artist himself. Using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based face-swap technique, known as “deepfake” in the technical community, the new “Dalí Lives” experience employs machine learning to put a likeness of Dalí’s face on a target actor, resulting in an uncanny resurrection of the moustacheod master. When the experience opens, visitors will for the first time be able to interact with an engaging life-like Salvador Dalí on a series of screens throughout the Museum.

The “Dalí Lives” project further demonstrates the Museum’s commitment to staying on the forefront of technology, embracing new methods to engage guests in unconventional ways to delight and educate them about Salvador Dalí and his works. Sometimes controversial like Dalí himself, this emerging technology is being used for the first time in inspiring service to art.

Released: January 2019

Tags:

San Francisco, The Dalí Museum

In January 1989, Salvador Dalí made his last public statement. He said, “When you are a genius, you do not have the right to die. Because we are necessary for the progress of humanity.”

So on the 30th anniversary of the master’s death, we brought him back to life using an artificial-intelligence technique popularly known as “deepfake” to give visitors of the Dalí Museum a point of view they never had: the art according to the artist. 

Fans of the iconic painter can now hear about the masterpieces from the mouth of the master himself and get to know his personality. 

To create Dalí’s likeness, we created a neural network that analyzed over 6,000 frames of archival footage. The process required over 1,000 hours of machine learning.

To re-create his personality, we used his own quotes, extracted from old interviews, books and personal letters, all curated by the Dalí Museum.

Through interactive screens installed inside the museum, people can get face to face with the artist. The screens show over 125 videos with 190,512 possible combinations, so every visitor can have a different experience. 

On the way out, there’s one last surprise: in a surreal move, Dalí pulls a smartphone out of his pocket and takes a selfie with the visitors.

The ultimate proof that the master is alive in 2019.

Released: May 2019

Tags:

San Francisco, The Dalí Museum

The Dream Tapestry is a first-of-its-kind interactive experience at The Dalí Museum where visitors can turn their dreams into art. We partnered with Minds Over Matter to bring OpenAI’s DALL·E to The Dalí, allowing people to create original, realistic Dream Paintings from a text description. Every few minutes, six Dream Paintings are stitched together by the AI to generate a Dream Tapestry. The result is an ever-growing series of entirely original Dream Tapestries, exhibited on the walls of the museum.

Released: December 2022

Tags:

San Francisco, The Dalí Museum

When a piece of artwork really inspires you, sometimes you just want to jump inside it and wander around. And now you can. 

“Dreams of Dalí” takes us inside the mind of the legendary surrealist Salvador Dalí by transporting us into one of his early paintings, Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus” (1935). Just put on the virtual-reality headset, and you’ll be able to move around inside the painting in a fully immersive 3-D environment. You’ll look beyond what was depicted in the original frame and even hear Dali’s possible thoughts as he was imagining his surreal world. 

“We are excited that our partnership with the Dalí Museum has allowed us an opportunity to explore a new way to look at art,” remarked GS&P co-founder Jeff Goodby. “Dalí was a true visionary, and no other artist would be a better fit for this project.”

“Dreams of Dalí” will be open to the public at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. A 360-degree-video version of the experience, involving simpler VR gadgets like Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR, is also available at dreamsofdali.org. 

Released: January 2016

Tags:

San Francisco, The Dalí Museum, Interactive, Film, Integrated, Mobile, Experiential