What would Princess Diana and Elvis Presley look like today? AI-based artworks by Alper Yesiltas bring late stars like Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon and Heath Ledger ‘back to life’ in 2022
- Using AI-based technology, Yesiltas’ collection ‘As If Nothing Happened’ on Bored Panda shows how some of the world’s biggest stars would look like if they were still alive
- From Heath Ledger and Janis Joplin to Queen’s Freddie Mercury and The Beatles’ John Lennon, Yesiltas has gone viral for his intriguing impressions of each icon
A new collection of images by well-known photographer Alper Yesiltas have gone viral as they bring celebrities who have died “back to life”. Using AI-based technology, Yesiltas called the collection “As If Nothing Happened”. He is a community member on viral site Bored Panda and used the platform to promote his collection, saying that behind the root of the project is the question “how would people look photo-realistically if some great event had not happened to them”.
Let’s take a closer look at the works … and the man behind them.
The inspiration behind the images
NDTV reported that Yesiltas used intelligence photo enhancer software and photo editing programmes to create the images. On Bored Panda, he wrote that AI technology has shown him that anything is possible to create and that’s when he started “tinkering with technology”.
The photographer said he thought about what he could do and what he wanted to see, and realised he wanted to see people who he missed. It was through this thought process that he began to build on the idea of creating images of stars as they would have been today if they had not passed away.
What could have been …
