Reviews, News and Opinion with a Canadian Perspective

Lady Gaga stole the show at last night's Grammy Awards with her heartfelt and energetic tribute to David Bowie. Lady Gaga is pop music's hugely talented chameleon and for her performance she teamed up with Intel.

Lady Gaga's performance incorporated Intel technologies to bring to life Lady Gaga’s vision for a truly worthy and memorable celebration of a legend’s life and career. With stunning visuals and interactive content that responded in real time to Lady Gaga’s every movement and command, the combined team took unprecedented risks in this live performance to give the artist the ability to express herself in a new dimension.

Infusing Lady Gaga’s unique artistry with innovative technologies from Intel, the collaboration brought to life a diverse and multifaceted homage to a music legend. The breakthrough performance demonstrated the power of technology to elevate an artist’s ability to deliver an amazing on-stage experience in ways never before imagined.

“I like to do things that integrate technology and art with powerful experiences,” said Lady Gaga. “I think that this collaboration with Intel has been very different than anything I have done before. They have really given me so much amazing technology to play with.”

In collaboration with Intel technologists and Lady Gaga’s creative team, specialized hardware powered by Intel® Xeon®, Intel® Core™ and Pentium® processors provided the requisite high performance to choreograph the lighting, audio and projection systems in perfect harmony with Lady Gaga.

The innovative fan-facing technologies crafted uniquely for the performance included:

Digital Skin – An “animated face” was developed for Lady Gaga that enabled her to adorn a number of iconic looks all in a single performance in real time, to mind-blowing effect. Intel’s highest performing processors were used throughout the development of this part of the performance, accurately tracking her facial movements while the “digital makeup” was adapted and displayed onto her instantaneously through a projector powered by a 6th Generation Intel Core processor-based desktop.

Interactive Video – Lady Gaga was given the power to control how she appeared on a beautiful large LED wall. Her Intel® Curie™ module-based ring generated the real-time effects as she rotated and animated her wrists and arms, while Intel Xeon processor-based media servers generated the live content.
Robotics – Gaga’s beautiful rose gold piano took on a life of its own as three Intel® Atom™ processor-powered robot arms danced as one to add unexpected motion effects to a traditionally staid and steady instrument.
Interactive Holograms – An innovative combination of her Intel Curie technology-based ring and holographic display materials were used to allow Lady Gaga to generate a beautiful three-dimensional hologram of the music legend.

“Intel is on a journey to create and share the amazing experiences that our technology enables,” said Steve Fund, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Intel. “This performance has set a new precedent for live music experiences and is a major milestone for Intel and the Grammys.”

“With music and technology so seamlessly intertwined, the Grammys’ partnership with Intel represents the perfect alignment,” offered Evan Greene, chief marketing officer of The Recording Academy. “Intel’s vision was to bring the live music experience to a level never before considered possible, and after tonight’s extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime performance, this ambitious objective was most certainly achieved.”