Virtual Pop Star Hatsune Miku Performs On Letterman

Hatsune Miku is a virtual pop singer that gets her voice courtesy of Crypton Future Media, which is based out of Japan. Using various Vocaloid synthesizers, she belts out songs and, despite her lack of flesh and blood, enjoys quite a fan base. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated projection technology, Hatsune has taken to more than one stage to perform songs, with the latest one being on The Late Show with David Letterman, where she danced and sang alongside a live band before fizzling away in a poof of digital magic.

Hatsune made her Letterman appearance on Wednesday, where she sang "Sharing the World" in a hard-to-understand techno-pop voice. Her projection — "hologram", if you will — was full-sized and complete with a dance number.

This isn't the first time Hatsune has made a digital stage presence — she opened for Lady Gaga earlier this year during a concert in St. Paul. More interesting than the technology itself is the question it poses: how will entertainment be shaped by such holographic performers?

Back in 2012, a holographic Tupac took to the stage at Coachella to perform live, though the artist passed away in the mid-90s. As these technologies are further refined, it stands that we'll see an increase in the number of digital performers who are, at the core, mechanical artists.