What was needed for the potential of Barcelona to crystallize in the field of art and technology, for the possibility of having an event to manifest the innovative habit of the city to be glimpsed, beyond overcoming corrosive self-criticism and duplication of efforts?
While fewer and fewer are proposing to replicate the Arco fair in Barcelona, initiatives linked to more advanced forms of art have emerged in Barcelona, under the protection of the renowned Catalan scientific ecosystem. The Catalan capital lives intensely the successful Madrid contemporary art fair through its gallery owners, artists and the public. What is the point of wanting to copy a fair located just two and a half hours by train and in which Barcelona, although it is not the direct beneficiary, already participates?
Sónar D and its perimeter have been consolidated, in this edition of the 30th anniversary of the festival, in a natural way, as that meeting point where initiatives from the field of art, science and technology converge.
There are several examples. On the eve of Sónar, a successful associated festival was held at UPF: the RAIN film Fest, for films generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI), directed by Jordi Balló. Also the day before, Sónar Mies began in the neighboring Mies Van der Rohe pavilion, with the intervention of the musician Marco Mezquida and the UPC professors Philippe Salembier and Josep Maria Comajuncosas. And, at the same time, a connection was established with the DHUB's Digital Impact exhibition, a space destined to intensify its relationship with Sónar D in the future.
As an inventory of this convening capacity, the creator of Puzzle X, Zina Cinker, stopped by Sónar to present some lines of her disruptive platform.
The Barcelona art, science and technology hub Hac Te also exhibited its projects at Sónar and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) presented its white paper on this sector, a work that should be expanded in the future to incorporate initiatives that have been left out.
During Sónar, even a person in charge of the European innovation program STARTS raised the idea of a future alliance between Sónar and Ars Electronica de Linz and the Salzburg Festival.
Sónar also provides a differential factor compared to other technological events. The music, the beer, the time of year in which it is celebrated, in short, the festival atmosphere, influence the way in which the debates are lived: as the new head of international expansion of Casa Batlló, Mateu Hernández, pointed out on Friday, At Sónar, the enjoyment of technology as an art emerges above all, rather than as a threat (there are already other forums to deal with that). A new differential factor.
What is needed in this way to consider that Sónar – endowed with a foundation – can be the engine of the Barcelona and Catalan proposal for technological art? Perhaps just believe it (also the administrations, in the form of a contribution) and facilitate that as many initiatives as possible from the same field come together on these dates in June –aimed at a wide audience–, as is the case with Arco and the multiplication of art events contemporary during the Madrid fair. In this context, Hac Te has identified up to 400 art and science initiatives in Catalonia.
Sónar's lack of commercial orientation could be complemented with a project that opens on the 26th at Macba: Focus Digital, a program for the confluence of art and technology promoted by the creator of Talking Galleries, Llucià Homs, awarded this week for this Work for the Galeries d'Art de Catalunya.
Focus Digital will bring together representatives of this field –the curator of Sónar D, Antònia Folguera, also intervenes– although with a more attentive look at the market. Its promoters do not rule out that, in the future, its dates coincide with those of the MWC or the ISE fair, in a digital February that has its most popular expression in the Llum Barcelona festival.
