This article was published on March 1, 2021

This AI-generated Daft Punk video is the perfect tribute to the electro pioneers

The Voyager music video was made with the Story2Hallucination library


This AI-generated Daft Punk video is the perfect tribute to the electro pioneers Image by: Corey-Adam Crowley

A computer artist has created a fittingly futuristic homage to Daft Punk, following the iconic duo’s announcement last week that they were splitting up.

Composer Glenn Marshall paid homage to the group by using AI to generate a music video for their 2001 track “Voyager.”

Marshall produced the film with a program called Story2Hallucination, a modification to the text-to-image generator Big Sleep.

Story2Hallucination uses Big Sleep to convert text inputs into continuous animations. It enables users to divide entire paragraphs into short phrases and then animate the footage piece-by-piece.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

[Read: How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners]

Marshall created his video by inputting the phrases “robot headgear,” “robot heads,” and “robot disco,” and prompting the system to produce clips in the style of the movie Tron.

“It could be any style of anything or anybody — Picasso, Art Deco, Monet, The Simpsons,” he told TNW via email. “You can be as specific as you want — the NLP will work out what I’m trying to ask.”

The Belfast-based composer then rendered the best clips produced by the AI into his final video.

The film is an appropriately innovative tribute to the electronic music pioneers, who announced their split by sharing an excerpt of their 2006 sci-fi film Electroma.

The clip culminates with one member of Daft Punk self-destructing in the desert, while the other walks off into the distance on his own. I asked Marshall what he thought the duo would make of his creation:

I think the one remaining member would smile, then explode.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with