How Exactly Did ‘Hologram Tupac’ Work?
Yesterday we learned that Hologram Tupac wasn't, in fact, a hologram, but rather a 2-D image. Now we get word that the seemingly cutting-edge technology behind the effect was developed way back in the 19th century.
Illusion expert Jim Steinmeyer explained the history of the image to the Wall Street Journal.
The effect was first used in an 1862 dramatization of Charles Dickens' novella 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,' staged at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in London. The effect relies on an angled piece of glass in which a "ghostly" image is reflected. "A piece of glass can be both transparent and reflective at the same time, depending on how it's situated relative to the audience," Steinmayer said.
Back in the days of Dickens, the reflection was coming from an actor, who was situated offstage. At Coachella, Tupac's computer generated image was projected onto the glass from a camera. But besides that, Steinmeyer feels comfortable classifying what happened on Sunday and what happened in 1862 as "virtually the same thing."
Sure, but did the "ghostly" image back in Victorian times have flow like 'Pac?