For the second year in a row super-magnetic late night host Jimmy Kimmel made an appearance at the CMA Awards after-show as a hologram beamed live from his Jimmy Kimmel Live stage in Hollywood courtesy of Hologram USA. For the same show, which included an appearance with Seth Rogan, Hologram USA beamed The Band Perry from Nashville to Hollywood for a set of songs.
“I’m three dimensional, but I’m not real — like most of the people you meet in L.A.,” said Kimmel to his audience in Tennessee.
He joked that though Tupac Shakur, Eazy E and Ol’ Dirty Bastard have performed as holograms, “Only me and Michael Jackson have appeared as white holograms!”
Hologram USA made a few other tricks possible, allowing the host to juggle, summon a cowboy hat, and speak to the floating head of sidekick Guillermo. He even played catch with the head with an audience member.
But his most impressive feat came when he attempted a selfie with an audience member. Getting the right angle has never been so crucial.
“This is why I dropped out of weatherman school,” Kimmel joked.
Later Guillermo starred in a crazy skit/commercial for the show’s sponsors:
Watch The Band Perry appear in hologram form in Hollywood, playing “Live Forever”:
While much of the news about holograms and the seismic change they are causing in the entertainment industry focusses on celebrity recreations (Hologram USA is creating the Whitney Houston, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly and Andy Kaufman hologram shows that have made news), Kimmel’s appearances highlight the use of “telepresence” to beam a person live across vast distances. Hologram USA, which is owned by Greek billionaire Alki David, has used it to beam Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to a conference in Nantucket, and to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi win the election in India by appearing simultaneously in up to 50 cities at once in hologram town halls.
