As popularized in William Gibson's Idoru , Japan has devised the entirely virtual pop singer, one without corporeal reality. In olden days, a pop singer was a person with a physical body and a voice. The Japanese, not content to leave well enough alone, cut out the physical part altogether.
Life imitates art.
And we unwittingly imitate the Japanese. Through Calista Flockhart. She is the Western world's first idoru. She is the role. But that space exists on television screens.