Walt Disney Concert Hall is an architectural masterpiece that recently featured an AI display program on its walls. Situated in downtown Los Angeles, CA, the venue developed from a $50 million donation by Lillian Disney. Architect Frank Gehry designed the hall, and it currently hosts the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Additionally, for the Philharmonic’s 100th anniversary, Refik Anadol, Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Program, and the Philharmonic team collaborated on an AI display program for the building.
Walt Disney Concert Hall AI Program Used 40,000 Hours of Audio Recordings
The display used 40,000 hours of audio recordings. The team visualized recordings by using an audio browser tool. The invention explored 256 different attributes; these attributes included ones such as pitch, tempo, and tonality. Artist Refik, as well as sound designers Robert Thomas and Kerim Karaoglu, picked specific recordings out of the selection. Then, they created a unique soundtrack with a visual narrative called WDCH Dreams.
Walt Disney Concert Hall AI Program Used Historic Images from the Orchestra’s Archive
The display used historic images from the orchestra’s archive, including photos and program prints. Additionally, the artist Refik used multiple machine learning formulas to identify visual patterns and create narratives. The name for these narratives is “dreams.”
The resulting masterpiece is a psychedelic narrative that projects onto the music hall itself. Consequently, WDCH Dreams was a 12-minute projection that launched in September 2018 for eight days. Moreover, it played every half hour from 7:30 pm – 11:30 pm in the downtown LA area.
What Is Next for Walt Disney?
What is next for the Walt Disney brand is to use AI to create psychedelic cartoons and new characters, based on modern-day kids’ values. It might even be able to glean kids’ preferences from microphones that are attached to their computers. With a large number of brands increasing their robotics usage these days, we will not be surprised if the new tech introduces AI in surprising ways to cartoons and new characters.
