Week 17: Follow-up exercise 1 – Grimes on evolving her digital self

Grimes reminds me of Hatsune Miku.

Hatsune Miku, is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official moe anthropomorphism, a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. Miku’s personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at live concerts onstage as an animated projection (rear cast projection on a specially coated glass screen). Miku uses Yamaha Corporation‘s Vocaloid 2, Vocaloid 3, and Vocaloid 4 singing synthesizing technologies. She also uses Crypton Future Media‘s Piapro Studio, a singing synthesize Plugin. She was the second Vocaloid sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the 2 engine. Her voice is modeled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. [by Wikipedia]

Nowadays, It’s common to see digital musicians (virtual singers) like this. There also have a digital musician in China named Luo Tianyi. And there are also a lot of live streams by digital idols on Bilibili (a website similar to YouTube). We see a digital image and hear a synthesized voice in the live. They all have their own life stories and characterizations, as a real people. Some of these digital idols are playing games, some are chatting with viewers, and others are watching movies and TV shows with viewers and commenting on them.

I feel like this is a very popular mode these days and one that many people actually enjoy.