More than 500 years after its creation, Leonardo’s portrait of Mona Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo is coming to digital life.
The “Living Mona Lisa,” created by a team of 40 technicians and artists at the Paris Internet and Multimedia Institute, employs artificial intelligence technology that picks up spectators’ movements and images. Motion sensing and facial recognition devices sense changes in the surroundings and mimic real-life movements so Mona Lisa appears to react in three dimensions. Leonardo’s enigmatic lady can frown, blink, grimace, pucker her lips or follow viewers with her gaze.
“Leonardo da Vinci tried to make her come alive, so it's appropriate that we've taken his intentions a few steps further," commented one of the team leaders. When no one is looking at it, the image poses in profile, as if lost in thought. When a viewer looks directly at the painting, Mona Lisa responds with a slight smile. Depending on the spectator’s behavior, she may scowl or even turn away.
While the portrait with its iconic smile remains in the Louvre, digital versions will be produced and marketed in different sizes and formats. The smallest ones can be worn as pendants, while larger and more sophisticated ones may sell in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars. A smart phone app will allow people to carry around a living version of the Mona Lisa with them in their pockets. Click here to read more.
Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.
The video clip below captures some initial responses to this 21st-century version of Mona Lisa.
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