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Screenshot »Deep Nostalgia«: Looking ever deeper in the rearview mirror
And then the great-grandmother suddenly smiles.
Although she died in 1972, she was considered to be rather lousy.
Even on the
one
really good picture there is of her, she looks rather grimly past the camera.
But if you upload this picture in a new app, it suddenly rolls your eyes, turns your head, looks around in astonishment, as if it had just come to, winks, looks for eye contact with the viewer - and finally smiles so kindly, as one has always wanted her to do.
What is known is that algorithms can do interesting things with face recognition.
Deepfakes make it possible to mount the head of Barack Obama on the head of Donald Trump and then let Albania declare war.
Such things.
With software such as “Mug Life” or “Avatarify”, the porter can theoretically be transformed into the chairman of the board and every Zoom conference can be dissolved into amusement.
"Deep Nostalgia" aims at a different audience.
And a different feeling.
The app of a company for DNA-based genealogy was developed in collaboration with an Israeli specialist for manipulating images and enables photos of ancestors to be "brought to life".
For this purpose, the uploaded template (great-grandmother) is assigned to a suitable video recording via a database, which then crawls into the picture, so to speak, like a hand in a glove - and sets the immobile in motion.
The effect is fascinating at first glance.
And a little scary.
"Any advanced technology," wrote Arthur C. Clarke, "is indistinguishable from magic."
In fact, many viewers are reminded of the animated oil paintings from the Harry Potter films.
With the difference that this time the great-grandmother, who died in 1972, breathes again, Fritz, who died before Verdun in 1917, or the uncle whom one has no longer been able to get to know.
Even if only for the duration of a GIF.
The temptation is great to give deceased ancestors a facial expression again.
The digital séance does not allow any contact with the dead.
But it sets in motion what was previously frozen in a photograph for all eternity.
The lost seems to come closer, becomes accessible, familiar.
In terms of memory technology, this use of artificial intelligence allows deep drilling into the layer that was not fortunate enough to have been fixed on Super 8 or otherwise on film.
Which is possibly a layer that is better kept in family photos - at best in a memory that doesn't need any visual crutches at all.
There is something that is not - and possibly never was.
As sweet as the nostalgia for the "pain of returning home" may be, what is moved is a fake.
Great-grandmother never looked out of her clothes like that.
And she would never flirt over from the afterlife in such a flirtatious way, as if it were a video for the dating agency »Ü120«.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that when looking at the animated ancestors, when the "magic" has done its job, the uncanny outweighs at some point.
What we see are actually ghosts of the past, awakened to abundant undead "life" by "magical" means.
Digital zombies.
This now goes far beyond retromania.
Hauntology is the word that the French philosopher Jacques Derrida coined in 1993 for the visitation of the present by phenomena of the past.
There's something not
is
- and perhaps never was.
Deeper and deeper looks in the rearview mirror
The advanced technology behind »Deep Nostalgia« is also hauntological.
In a tricky way, it makes us aware of what has irrevocably passed - and satisfies our need for deeper and deeper looks in the rearview mirror.
Everyone can decide for themselves whether this is a good thing.
Derrida died in 2004, unfortunately you can no longer ask him.
He also just rolls his eyes, turns his head, looks around in astonishment, as if he has just come to, winks, seeks eye contact with the viewer - and smiles sympathetically.
Icon: The mirror