After last week’s announcement by Daft Punk that legendary electronic music duo have split up after 28 years together, a flurry of tributes have been shared. One digital artist, however, took an appropriately high-tech route in his homage to the fabled French robots.
Award-winning Irish computer artist Glenn Marshall has shared an artificial intelligence-generated music video for Daft Punk’s 2001 single “Voyager.” Without getting too technical, Marshall essentially trained a computer to create visuals inspired by Daft Punk.
As Marshall explains in the description of the video, he used the phrases “robot headgear,” “robot heads,” “robot disco,” and “Tron” to guide the AI’s creation. The result is a series of beautifully bizarre images that he set to the sound of the duo’s iconic Discovery track. It’s quite fascinating to see how the artwork resembles Daft Punk’s likeness without him mentioning them by name.
Check out the inventive video below.
On Marshall’s YouTube channel, he shared a bit of background on his artistic process and what computers can do with the right guidance.
As a computer artist for the last 20 years, I’ve been fascinated by getting the computer to generate art by itself.
Rather than using algorithms and random numbers to do this, the computer can now use a trained neural model of human memory and how it stores shapes and colours, so that it can present memories, dreams and visions of the imagination as it would to the human mind.
I am now removed almost entirely from the creation of the image – as I am dealing directly with preconceived images stored in human memory and the mind’s perception of beauty and form. For me, as an artist, the more I remove myself from the process, the closer I get to truth.
For those familiar with the world of artificial intelligence or digital art, the code used in the creation of the video was also shared in the description.
This is not the first music crossover Marshall has released. In the past, he’s shared works inspired by the music of Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, and more. You can learn more about Marshall’s artwork and check out some of his other audiovisual projects on his website.