“The international week of electronic music and digital culture”. This is how the next edition of Sónar 2024 was presented at a press conference, which will take place in Barcelona between June 13 and 15, but which is increasingly spreading in the city and in the calendar “like a stain”, with a will as expansive as agglutinating. It is already announced as Sónar Week, with different activities and partners ranging from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra to the Casa Batlló or the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion. Sónar was born 31 years ago as a meeting of electronic music. Since then, its artistic and industrial growth has been unstoppable and it has established itself as an indisputable international reference for the city of Barcelona as well.

What will Sónar 2024 have in store for us? More than 300 activities including concerts, DJ sets, presentations, exhibitions, talks, workshops, films and meetings that will require a great ability to organize our agendas as well as the gift of ubiquity to move between Sónar by Day, Sónar by Night and Sónar +D. How to summarize this extensive program? Micro-scenes of dance music and pioneering figures of electronica with AI experts and innovators of digital and audiovisual culture.

The topic that will run through this edition is, especially in Sónar +D, artificial intelligence: its uses, risks, fears and the implications of its use as a fundamental tool in the creative and scientific fields.

We begin this previous tour highlighting the opening conference of Sónar +D, “Generating Panic?” by artists Nicole L’Huillier and Sacha Costanza-Chock on the fascination and uncertainties generated by AI applied to music and artistic practices. Is it possible to achieve a more inclusive technology, which is not built in a hierarchical way but includes diversity itself -in a very broad sense- from its beginnings? AI-generated fiction and critical thinking, the role of AI in fashion, immersive identities, generative AI, legal aspects and copyrights will be other topics to be discussed in this forum.

Team Rolfes. 3-2-1 Rule

In this section it is worth mentioning the performances of Team Rolfes with Lil Mariko and Myriam Bleau & Nien Tzu Weng as well as the Project Area, increasingly expansive, to experience some proposals up close.

Project Area in Sónar +D

Sónar is all about music and dance. Dance among the audience and also, this year, dance and choreography on stage. At Sónar Day we will have to pay attention to Lee Gamble + Candela Capitán, Kiani del Valle, Blackchaine and Asian Doge Boys and, of course, also to all the musical proposals ranging from electronic dance, pop, rap and flamenco.

Yerai Cortés. Bulerías

More highlights at Sónar Night, with electronic music references are Air, Jessie Ware and Vince Staples. Attention to the micro-scenes, with Tayhana (Club Latinx), the BLEX collective or Club Cringe. These are ultra-local but interconnected scenes, often the fruit of diasporas and very rich in influences.

TAYHANA

The countdown begins in the calendar with a few days of intense and complex work of organization and coordination for this macro-event that has a great impact on the city. Three intense days of festival, 365 days in the international mental calendar.