Tupac Shakur’s appearance via hologram on the last night of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival@@http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1683377/tupac-hologram-inspired-memes.jhtml AND http://www.coachella.com/@@ was so mesmerizing that even Patrick Schwarzenegger@@http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/patrick-schwarzenegger-coachella_n_1431976.html@@, son of Arnold, was impressed, Tweeting: “Literally thought that tupac rose from the dead … That tupac hologram at the dre and snoop concert was sooooo crazy.” Indeed.
The young Schwarzenegger wasn’t the only person in the world enthused by the holographic Tupac. The dead rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur@@http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/17/11248071-tupac-shakurs-mom-reportedly-thrilled-with-hologram-of-dead-son@@, who had signed off on Dr. Dre’s plan to bring her son to Coachella, thought the AV Concepts-produced@@http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/tupac-hologram-av-concepts_n_1429316.html@@ hologram was spellbinding — or as the TMZ.com report phrased it, “frickin’ AMAZING” and “mind-blowingly awesome.”@@http://www.tmz.com/@@
It’s all distressing and disgraceful, really, if not enormously irritating. The high-tech resurrection of Tupac was a tawdry and morbid exercise of gee-whiz computer skills, an assertion of pixels and code over the stuff of life and true artistry. All of the sloppy adulation from Coachella attendees on Facebook and observers in media for what amounts to a slightly improved version of an old-timey theater trick is embarrassing.
Perhaps this is dully obvious to point out, but the real Tupac is dead. He was shot to death in 1996@@http://www.alleyezonme.com/info/96shooting.html@@. What was on stage Sunday night with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg — what so baffled and enthralled Patrick Schwarzenegger — was a crass projection, a smoke-and-mirrors facsimile of what was once a living person. The rapping hologram might be a mildly @@let’s be real, it was pretty fucking impressive@@impressive stunt from an engineering and technical perspective, but it does a disservice to an artist who once lived and wrote and performed. No amount of projectors, lights and wishful thinking can bring him back.
And now Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and the digital production team that brought him to “life” apparently have designs to take the Tupac hologram on tour. It’s absurd to think that there would be a market for concerts of glorified computer screens, though it seems there might. The idea of selling the Tupac hologram to audiences, and that people are receptive to it, is a portent of a dark future for the arts and for live performance, a future where hollow technological wizardry is preferred over human talent and ability, where machines are preferred over people.
Ultimately, what is most terrible about the holographic Tupac, and especially the plan to take it on tour, is that it robs the real Tupac Shakur of his agency and dignity. Even though he is dead, he still has a right to his artwork, his name and his being. The Tupac hologram takes all of that and hands them over to a company that can do whatever it wants with them. It turns a human being into a business venture, a piece of property, a money-making puppet,@@yeah, that’s never happened@@ which were all things that the socially conscious artist spoke out against in his work and in his life.