It’s deepfake karaoke, Old Master style

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

A new tool goes a step further than those AI animations of portrait paintings that have been doing the rounds: the recently launched Wombo.Ai app, which transforms still images into singing videos. By the end of last week, some 15 million Wombo videos had been created – among them, of course, some delightfully expressive footage of historical artworks serenading the internet.

Getting things off to a disconcerting start, here’s Henry VIII getting a little too into his rendition of Ding Ding Song, the Europop parody by Swedish musical artist Günther. Click through to the Twitter thread to watch his six wives take on a range of other lively tunes.

I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist …

Henry VIII
& his six wives

Told through @WOMBO pic.twitter.com/jOEXt4k3R2

— James Wallace (@jamesthewallace) March 13, 2021

The Mona Lisa, rightly or wrongly, is feeling herself (as the kids say):

I’m uncomfortable @WOMBO pic.twitter.com/6FERAp2zyB

— (trsh) birschbox (@birschbox) March 11, 2021

Seventeenth-century portraiture, it seems, is especially well suited to a whole range of karaoke classics – witness Van Dyck’s Charles I singing along to Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive (if only he knew).

What in god’s name have i done pic.twitter.com/VylSEdUx9X

— James 💜 Loxley (@oldnorthroad) March 12, 2021