LOS ANGELES – Accessibility can be an artist’s largest asset. Listeners wish to really feel with reference to the musicians they appreciate and make stronger — and maximum would bounce on the likelihood to be in contact one-on-one. But famous person schedules hardly ever permit for that roughly intimacy. So what is the subsequent perfect factor?
For Mark Tuan, whose new EP “Fallin’” is out Friday, it was once making a virtual avatar.
The rapper-singer-model and previous member of the K-pop boy band Got7 partnered with Soul Machines to create an autonomously automatic “digital twin” called “Digital Mark.” In doing so, Tuan has grow to be the primary famous person to connect their likeness to OpenAI’s GPT integration, synthetic intelligence era that permits fanatics to interact in one-on-one conversations with Tuan’s avatar.
“It’s very different. It’s not really me, but it is me,” he says of Digital Mark. “It’s a cool thing, that fans get to interact with him, too.”
Greg Cross, CEO of Soul Machines, views Digital Mark as the future of fan engagement.
“While Digital Mark is the first Digital Celebrity Twin of its kind, we’re only at the beginning of how autonomous animation will reshape how individuals across the globe interact with celebrities and brands,” he said in a statement.
Tuan’s hope with Digital Mark is that as the technology advances, so too will fans’ relationships with his AI character — and that they’ll get to communicate with him in languages beyond English.
Getting Digital Mark to mirror the real Mark Tuan was an extensive process, involving several days of filming in a motion capture bodysuit. Tuan spent a full day demonstrating emotive facial expressions for Digital Mark to learn from, and then considerable time in his studio so “they can get my voice recognition,” he says.
Right now, Digital Mark “just stands there … but maybe in the future, they’re going to incorporate me walking around,” he says.
The era is in its early days — Tuan says Digital Mark has been spreading “false rumors” a few nonexistent excursion — however he is enthusiastic about how the avatar will evolve. Fans have already been the usage of Digital Mark to “troll” Tuan, playfully bugging the AI Mark about such things as excursion dates and new song — “which is the relationship the fans have with me,” he says with fun.
As for issues over how this type of era might be used one day, Tuan is cautiously positive.
“I’ve seen a lot of movies where robots take over the world,” he jokes. “You never really know what’s going to happen, but I think it is really cool.”
His openness to technological development mirrors his experimental spirit as a musician. “Fallin’” follows his 2022 debut solo album, “The Other Side.” The sound is other: He’s detoured from R&B and hip-hop to pursue sunny pop-punk. That’s right away evidenced at the cheery retro-pop of “Your World” and the synth-y, riff-led love track “Everyone Else Fades.”
“I brought in a live band,” he says, specializing in developing songs he sensed can be “really fun to perform love,” with anthemic rock drums.
“’The Other Side’ confirmed a extra, you realize, emotional Mark, unhappy Mark,” he says. And while fans enjoyed it, he sensed they wanted an uplifting, empowering collection of songs from him. If his album allowed them to see into his sense of interiority — a kind of catharsis removed from his group idol days — “Fallin’” is a creative exercise. It’s Tuan having fun in the studio and with his fans.
In that way, he hopes “Fallin” is something fans throw on in the morning to feel good about the day — and themselves.
“I want to create something that’s easier for them to listen to,” he says. “Daily music,” as he describes it.
And when they are performed? They can communicate to Digital Mark about it.