Björk completes the Sónar 2017 program with her immersive Virtual Reality exhibition at the CCCB, a talk at the Sónar+D congress and an exclusive 4-hour DJ set to open the festival.
“Björk Digital” will take place at Barcelona’s Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB) between the 13th of June and the 24th of September. Visitors will be treated to an extraordinary immersive exhibition, with VR and video works from the iconic Icelandic artist’s recent collaborations with some of the best visual artists and programmers in the world. The exhibition combines performance, cinema, installation, video and interaction, with Virtual Reality playing an integral role in the experience.
An exclusive Björk DJ Set for the Opening Night on Wednesday June 14, which requires a separate ticket, rounds off the Sónar 2017 music program, which will feature more than 140 performances distributed across 9 stages, between Sónar by Day and Sónar by Night.
Björk’s involvement at Sónar 2017 (DJ set, exhibition and talk) illustrates the wide range of activities and formats to be held and spread at this year’s festival over seven days, both in its Fira Montjuïc and Fira Gran Vía venues, as well as various Sónar associated iconic cultural spaces around the city: an authentic Sónar Week in all its guises as a festival, 3 congresses and 4 exhibitions, turning the city of Barcelona into a unique cultural platform.
The festival’s music program adds Wednesday June 14 and Sunday 18 to its schedule, with Björk’s Opening Night DJ Set and the Closing Concert taking place at l’Auditori, featuring Nico Muhly on piano and Stargaze performing the piece “Death Speaks” By David Lang.
Sónar+D expands its program with the inclusion of Maker Faire Barcelona, the maker technologies orientated event open to a family audience with free access, taking place at the Fira Montjuïc Italian Pavilion.
The Sónar Week is completed by a spectacular range of exhibitions in the city including, besides “Björk Digital”, the anthology dedicated to one of the most influential figures of our time, “David Bowie Is”, at the Barcelona Museum of Design -produced by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum); “Lightforms / Soundforms” by Brian Eno, the most complete exhibition on his work to date, at the Arts Santa Mònica ; and “Blackout” from the recently deceased Catalan artist Tres, at la Virreina Centre de la Imatge.
Sónar also returns to two performance spaces habitually associated with the festival; with the Mies van der Rohe pavilion hosting the sound installation “Wave Shift” by Mark Bain, and the premiere of the experimental dance piece “Èpica“ at Mercat de les Flors.
Among this year’s performances are the previously announced new shows of Justice, Nicolas Jaar, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Arca & Jesse Kanda, Soulwax, DJ Shadow, Masters At Work, Moderator, Eric Prydz or De La Soul. Each year the festival explores the latest music and electronic culture trends, from new urban rhythms to dance music through to experimental sounds and unclassifiable artists transcending genres.
New narratives in Virtual Reality, immersive experiences, the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the arts, maker and new music technologies trends will be central topics at the fifth Sónar+D. Simoultaneously Sónar+D this year brings forward its opening with a Networking Day on Wednesday June 14, a day of learning and debate exclusively for professionals.
The “Björk Digital” exhibition is an example of reality projects and immersive environments that also stand out at this year’s Sónar+D. Sónar’s Conference for Creative Technologies will offer a wide range of immersive experiences; both through activities open to the general public as well as conferences for professionals only: Sonar360º by Movistar+ will present a new space dedicated to “fulldome” audiovisual pieces; the Realities+D program expands to more than 20 Virtual Reality pieces applied to the arts; the macro-installation “phosphere” at SonarPlanta, and the spectacular conference-show “Entropy” will also be presented at Sónar+D.
“Björk Digital”, the immersive Björk exhibition
From June 14 to September 24, the “Björk Digital” exhibition will be running at the Barcelona’s Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB). This extraordinary immersive exhibition features digital and video works from the iconic Icelandic artist’s collaborations with some of the world’s best visual artists and programmers.
“Björk Digital” at Barcelona’s Centre for Contemporary Culture will remain open until September 24, its longest run to date, following shows in Tokyo, Sydney, Montreal, Reykjavík, London, Mexico and Los Angeles (from May 19 to June 4) and will offer a unique opportunity to visit the exhibition in Spain.
“Björk Digital” is an immersive exhibition conceived as an experience to submerge oneself in the unique creative universe of Björk, with Virtual Reality playing a major role. The exhibition combining performance, cinema, installation, video and interaction, includes several audiovisual pieces produced with the latest technology in Virtual Reality, and will display several works Björk has created in collaboration with artists such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Alexander McQueen, Nick Knight, Stephane Sednaoui, and more recently Jesse Kanda, Andrew Thomas Huang, Warren du Prees and Nick Thornton Jones.
“Björk Digital” is a co-production between the CCCB and Sold Out, in collaboration with Sónar.
Sónar 2017 Opening Night: Björk DJ Set
On Wednesday June 14, Björk will star at the Sónar 2017 Opening Night with an exclusive 4-hour DJ Set at the Fira Montjuïc’s SonarHall stage. This will be a rare opportunity to enjoy an intense sensorial journey of disparate genres that have influenced her career, ranging from experimental electronica to new grime, through to traditional music from around the world.
The Icelandic artist typically shies away from standard dance floor tendencies to concentrate on a more abstract and kaleidoscopic sound, selecting influences from a plethora of sources, demonstrating innovative nuances to her always challenging and dynamic performances.
The show will take place from 8.00pm, one day before the main festival opens its doors to the rest of Montjuïc venue spaces and stages. This performance will be limited to 3,000 people and will require a separate ticket purchase. All normal Sónar Passes will not permit access to this event.
Sónar 2017 rounds off its music program
With the addition of the exceptional DJ Set from Björk, Sónar 2017 closes its music program, which will feature more than 140 performances distributed across 9 stages.
The festival celebrates dance music in a broad and prismatic sense (Justice, Masters At Work, Soulwax, Cerrone, Moderat, Seth Troxler & Tiga, Nina Kraviz, The Black Madonna, Derrick Carter, Marcel Dettman…); it upholds its pledge to artists with unique profiles that transcend genres (Nicolas Jaar, Arca & Jesse Kanda, Jon Hopkins, Matmos, Suzanne Ciani, Nosaj Thing & Daito Manabe, Nico Muhly…); it will delve deep into unconventional and more radical urban rhythms (Tommy Cash, C.Tangana, Dellafuente + Dj Maka, Kiddy Smile, Florentino, Total Freedom…); and will journey through the black music roots of hip hop, soul and dub (Fat Freddys´s Drop, Thundercat, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, De La Soul, Dj Shadow…); as well as the most cutting edge grime era genres from (Clams Casino, DAWN, Giggs, Nadia Rose, Aj Tracey…).
Björk’s talk at Sónar+D on her links to the audiovisual world
Björk will also give a unique talk at the Sónar+D conference, which this year focuses on the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality applied to the arts.
On Wednesday June 14, an exclusive day for accredited professionals, Björk will discuss her close ties to the audiovisual world, a central theme of her exhibition.
Sónar+D professional accreditation will be required to attend this talk.
Sónar+D 2017 opens for one more day, exclusively to professionals, and introduces Maker Faire Barcelona, a free entrance maker event appealing to a family audience
This year Sónar+D opens on Wednesday, June 14, one day before the main festival. The Networking Day will be an exclusive day for professionals, focussing on conferences and in-depth debate on some of this year’s central themes.
In addition to a talk by Björk, the Networking Day will drill further down into immersive environments and formats, new Virtual Reality narratives, the impact of artificial intelligence on the arts and the development of standard protocols for managing music rights.
Sónar+D extends its appeal to a more family audience, specifically to the maker world, with the inclusion of the Maker Faire Barcelona program of activities on Saturday June 17 and Sunday 18, with free access. The Maker Faire event will bring together technology enthusiasts, artisans, educators, creatives, engineers, science communities, writers, artists, students and commercial exhibitors, and aims to share experiences and processes around the maker universe, and to connect the general public with the latest technologies that make them possible.
Immersive environments, a central theme at Sónar+D
Many of Sónar+D’s best moments will arise from the new immersive languages placing the user at the centre of the experience. Realities+D, the area presenting this year’s most important Virtual Reality productions, increases in size and expands program with more than 20 titles including European and world premieres.
The new Sonar360º by Movistar+ space is added; a fulldome dedicated to audiovisual pieces and live shows that explore the creative possibilities of image and surround sound.
SonarPLANTA, the collaboration between Sónar and the Sorigué Foundation which creates new monumental productions by leading names from the international New Media art scene, will this year present “phosphere“, a sophisticated interactive installation by multidisciplinary Japanese artist Daito Manabe and his creative technologies studio, Rhizomatiks.
Creation following the Artificial Intelligence revolution and the new narratives in Virtual Reality are also among this year’s central themes
In the block of conferences and workshops, the impact of the artificial intelligence revolution on the work of tomorrow’s creators is one of the central themes at Sonar+D 2017, with the participation of researchers, artists and technologists heading these transformations.
Among participants are artists including Memo Atken and bots creator Darius Kazemi. Three key Google departments in this area (Artists and Machine Intelligence, Magenta and Google Arts and Culture), present projects, tools and prototypes that question whether creativity is exclusively human, or whether artistic creation can arise from collaboration between humans and machines.
Google will also take part in the conferences and workshops dedicated to the creation of Virtual Reality, along with organizations such as the United Nations and studios like Within, leaders in content creation for VR.
Transparent and effective management of music rights: the challenge for the Open Music Initiative
Organizations such as the legendary MIT Media Lab, Ideo and the Berklee College of Music will also take part at the congress, presenting the Open Music Initiative project, whose challenge is to define a standard protocol for managing the rights of artists and creators.
In this gathering, OMI founders, Panos Panay, Marko Ahtisaari and Michael Hendrix, will for the first time share the technology they have developed to unify music metadata and interoperability protocols between platforms. This will allow music use identification and automate processes to recompense artists in a streamlined, fair and transparent way.
Marketlab puts its focus on music technology
As always MarketLab returns to the large public area in Sónar+D, bringing together 30 technological research, creation, experimentation and industry projects that this year, among other topics, will pay special attention to music technology.
Among this year’s participants will be creative experimentation centres such as London incubator Somerset House Studios, and New York’s School for Poetic Computation with Absolut ; Creative platforms like Kickstarter and the littleBits makers tool, as well as the universities RMIT (Australia) and Kuntsuniversitat Linz (Austria).
Startup Garden and Sónar Innovation Challenge, the training and business development areas of Sónar+D
The Startup Garden powered by MIGRATION and the Sónar Innovation Challenge are two areas connecting the creative and technological worlds with the business world. It has two objectives: to foster innovation and the creation of new prototypes, and to help startups consolidate their business models and secure financing.
Startup Garden powered by MIGRATION is a unique exhibition space that stands out from other events thanks to its specialization (it is focused on the creative industries) and exclusivity, with just 30 startups selected. The chosen companies will have at their disposal a team of mentors from various industries, professional interdisciplinary backgrounds and wide-ranging experience in the field of entrepreneurship. Startup Garden powered by MIGRATION will provide participating companies a unique opportunity to boost their projects, increase their visibility and promote their products to thousands of new customers/users, connect with investors and extend and reinforce their collaboration networks within the festival framework.
The Sonar Innovation Challenge connects companies with innovation needs and creators with diverse profiles : hackers, designers, programmers, engineers and artists, among others. This year, 6 challenges will be put forward by entities including MTG,
Deezer, Red Bull Amaphiko, Teosto Future Labs and InFlight VR. 6 transdisciplinary teams consisting of 5 people will solve these challenges with the creation of prototypes to be presented in Sónar+D.
Sónar expands its program into the city, with a full week of oustanding cultural activities
Between Monday June 12 and Sunday 18, Barcelona will experience one of its most culturally active weeks of the year. Björk’s involvement at Sónar 2017 (DJ Set, exhibition and talk) exemplifies the wide range of activities to be held at this year’s festival over seven days, both in its Fira Montjuïc and Fira Gran Vía venues, as well as numerous Sónar associated cultural spaces around the city: a genuine Sónar Week in all its forms as a festival, congress and exhibitions.
FESTIVAL
The festival’s music program adds Wednesday June 14 and Sunday 18 to its schedule, with Björk’s Opening Night DJ Set and the closing concert taking place at l’Auditori, featuring Nico Muhly on piano and Stargaze performing the piece ” Death Speaks” by David Lang. The “Wave Shift” sound installation by Mark Bain will occupy the Mies van der Rohe pavilion, and experimental dance show “Èpica” by Aimar Pérez Galí will take place at Mercat de les Flors.
CONGRESSES
Sónar+D advances its opening with Networking Day on Wednesday June 14, a day of learning and debate exclusively for professionals. It expands its program with the inclusion of Maker Faire Barcelona, a maker technologies event appealing to a family audience, taking place at the Fira Montjuïc Italian Pavilion on Saturday 17 and Sunday June 18. Entrance will be free.
On Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th June, CosmoCaixa will host the IGL 2017 Global Conference organized by Nesta – a yearly event focused on policy related to innovation and entrepreneurship, whose goal is to highlight the latest trends in innovation, entrepreneurship and growth policy. The conference, which brings together political figures, industry professionals and researchers from around the world, will dovetail with Sónar+D on Wednesday 14th June, where the representatives will present the most innovative projects as well as the talents behind them.
EXHIBITIONS
Remarkable exhibitions will include “Björk Digital”; the anthology dedicated to one of the most influential figures of our time, “David Bowie Is” at the Barcelona Museum of Design -produced by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum-; “Lightforms / Soundforms” by Brian Eno, the most complete exhibition of the artist’s work to date, at the Arts Santa Mònica; and “Blackout” from the recently deceased Catalan artist Tres, at la Virreina Centre de la Imatge.