Photo – Sónar archives ©
Between Wednesday 27 and Saturday 30 October, the festivals will be held at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), L’Auditori and Poble Espanyol.
More than 100 activities, concerts, lectures, demonstrations, workshops, screenings and audiovisual capsules will fill the spaces of the CCCB every day, from Thursday 28 to Saturday 30, from 11 am to midnight. On the nights of Friday 29 and Saturday 30, between 10 pm and 4 am, the musical activity moves to the Plaza Mayor of Poble Espanyol. All the shows can be watched standing up and without social distancing at both venues.
Rakky Ripper
Among the 61 musical performances, highlights include artists such as Koreless, Tirzah, Leon Vynehall, Space Afrika, Mouse on Mars, BFlecha, Dj Nigga Fox, Marco Mezquida, Marina Herlop, Object Blue, Rakky Ripper; the special collaborations between Cora Novoa & The Artifacts feat. Tirador A/V set, or the vocal ensemble formed by American artist Holly Herndon with Maria Arnal and Tarta Relena.
Filip Custic
Cora Novoa & The Artifacts
The virtual star of Thursday 28th is an artificial intelligence that will play the role of DJ in the Pati de les Dones of the CCCB, playing all day without human intervention a selection of music created by the same AI from the music of hundreds of sessions by other DJs.
Coinciding with the SónarCCCB festival, on the nights of Friday 29th and Saturday 30th October, OFFSónar by Night will celebrate the return of clubbing to the Barcelona night with two of the most important DJs in the world, Nina Kraviz and Laurent Garnier, in 2 extraordinary sessions at the Hivernacle of Poble Espanyol. Sharing the booth will be local hero Angel Molina and some of the most select DJs of the current Barcelona scene.
BFlecha
The program of lectures and presentations will focus on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in music, the design of new digital spaces and imaginaries, new digital economies, sustainability and the city of the future.
AWWZ b2b AI DJ
Hamill Industries, Kiani del Valle
Sónar acts as a physical and virtual hub to connect ideas and talent, and promote cultural innovation in Barcelona and aiding in its international projection. This special edition focuses on content and formats based on co-creation, collaboration and knowledge exchange between creators and entities from different disciplines, both artistic and scientific.
Examples of this are those shows developed for the AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival hand in hand with researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and: Pianist Marco Mezquida, visual design studio Hamill Industries with the choreographer Kiani del Valle or the music producer Awwz. Other examples of co-creation between art and science are those between the artist and researcher Joana Moll and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Reiko Yamada with the Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO) or the live neuroscience experiment that will open SónarCCCB designed by the Ajuntament de L’Hospitalet with the Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL) and with the participation of the DJ Alicia Carrera.
Holly Herndon
Leon Vynehall
The program of collaborations of this Sónar 2021 extends through projects carried out with numerous agents of the cultural and educational scene, both in Barcelona and the rest of Europe, such as the CCCB itself, the In-Edit festival, the IDEAL digital arts center, facilities such as L’Auditori, Hangar, Soko Tech, Factory Berlin, Bozar, Somerset House Studios and Sala Salamandra, training centers such as ESMUC, Eina, Taller de Músics, Eumes, IED and BAU or the contents developed by collectives such as Dublab, Artificia, Quantum Music, Polifonia and entities such as Òpera de Butxaca i Nova Creació (OBNC).
LP Duo
Koreless
AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival / Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th October
The new festival of artificial intelligence and music, organized in collaboration with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and betevé and promoted by the S+T+ARTS program of the European Commission, will bring together experts, scientists, professionals and artists from around the world to discuss, explore and demonstrate the synergies between music creation and artificial intelligence through a wide and impressive program of concerts, lectures, demonstrations and hackathons.
A total of 21 musical shows integrating artificial intelligence will be presented, most of them produced expressly for the festival, including the unprecedented collaboration between Holly Herndon, María Arnal and Tarta Relena or other artistic projects such as Mouse on Mars, Hamill Industries & Kiani del Valle, AWWZ, Nabihah Iqbal and Libby Heaney or Reiko Yamada, as well as a history-making DJ set by artificial intelligence that will play, without human assistance, all day long at the Pati de les Dones, music created by itself from hundreds of music files of others.
On Wednesday night, October 27th, L’Auditori de Barcelona will present, in co-production with Sónar and UPC, the Inaugural Concert of the AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival, with the pianist and composer Marco Mezquida premiering the show “Piano+AI”.
JASS b2b Cem featuring Harriet Davey AV set
YACHT
SónarCCCB 2021 / Friday 29 and Saturday October 30
For its part, SónarCCCB will feature 40 shows and DJ sets, with big international names of the avant-garde such as Koreless, Tirzah, Leon Vynehall, Space Afrika, Parrenin/Weinrich/Rollet, Object Blue A/V Live, Il Quadro di Troisi, Die Wilde Jagd or DJ Nigga Fox, as well as a wide representation of current national and local talent such as BFlecha, Rakky Ripper or Cora Novoa & The Artifacts feat. Tirador A/V set, among others. The radio platform Dublab Barcelona will curate the SonarVillage by Estrella Damm stage featuring a dozen of the most relevant emerging artists from the Barcelona music ecosystem.
Marco Mezquida, Piano AI
To inaugurate SónarCCCB, Sónar, the City of L’Hospitalet and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) will present for the first time a neuroscience experiment to explore how human curiosity works through music. The festival will be used as a scientific laboratory to collect evidence to study the differences in curiosity among the SónarCCCB audience. On October 29th – at CCCB – and October 30th – at Sala Salamandra in l’Hospitalet-, participants will be exposed to completely new music. With the data obtained, differences between listeners will be evaluated, considering the musical profile of each one, the sensitivity and pleasure of the experience, as well as the potential to enter into states of transcendence and absorption.
The SónarCCCB program is completed with the Sónar+D conferences and workshops and will culminate with a marathon of documentaries on electronic music on Sunday, October 31 at Aribau Multicines in association with the In-Edit festival. The day before, as part of the SónarCCCB talks program, there will be a face-to-face conversation between Laurent Garnier and J. A. Bayona.
Parrenin Weinrich Rollet
AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival
Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th October
Sónar, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and betevé are partnering to present, for the first time in Barcelona, the AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival; an initiative of the European Commission that places focus on applications, challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in music creation.
The AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival will feature nearly 30 activities, including shows, presentations and lectures by artists who incorporate artificial intelligence as an essential element in their musical projects.
Reiko Yamada
World Premieres and Co-Creations
Among the 21 shows on the program, most of them absolute premieres, feature co-creations developed expressly for the festival in which the artists have worked hand in hand with artificial intelligence researchers from the UPC. These include the opening concert from pianist and composer Marco Mezquida, the show from choreographer Kiani del Valle together with visual artists Hamill Industries or the interactive show with audience participation created by the Catalan DJ and producer Awwz.
Space Afrika
Also co-created for the occasion, the AI and Music Festival presents a research project and artistic residency from Holly Herndon, a pioneer in experiments with the human voice and artificial intelligence, together with Maria Arnal and Tarta Relena. This unique vocal ensemble, under the title ‘Holly+’, will create a human and virtual polyphony, exclusively for the festival. Another highlight of the program is “Of Randomness and Imperfection”, a show whose concept comes from the collaboration between artists and researchers Reiko Yamada and Maciej Lewenstein, in collaboration with the Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO).
Mouse on Mars
In a total exclusive, the Pati de les Dones stage at the CCCB will feature an “AI Rave”, a DJ set created by a neural network that will generate brand new music from the archive of programs from the last five years of Dublab Barcelona radio station’s history. This performance is designed by Berlin-based artists Dadabots and Hexorcismos, both Alumni of Sónar+D’s Artist in Residence program with Factory Berlin.
More info and tickets on aimusicfestival.eu
