Animating the past: MyHeritage's deepfakes create a 'post-life' for historical photos

US genealogy service's DeepNostalgia experiment with deepfakes has gone viral - and marks a departure in our relationship with history

L-R: A pensive-looking Johann Sebastian Bach, and Oscar Wilde, seen here side-eyeing someone. Two historical figures brought to life by MyHeritage's DeepNostalgia service.

The thing about the pervasiveness of modern technology as we currently stand, for many people, is that the line between everyday function and speculative fiction is thinning at an exponential rate.

For better or worse, waves of social media have altered and compartmentalised our communication skills over the past 15 years. Devices like Alexa log our habits while helping us run our houses, while streaming audio and video are well on the way to cannibalising traditional formats, with algorithms jostling with human intuition and 'lived' culture for influence in our consumption habits.