Ars Electronica Garden Barcelona

This is Sónar+D

Sónar+D – Sónar Festival's creative technologies conference – is an international congress exploring how creative minds are changing our present and imagining new futures, in collaboration with researchers, innovators and business leaders from all sectors and industries.

Acte de Fe

Marc Vilajuana, Adrià Grandia, Carlos Martorell

Act of faith (Acte de Fe) is an exploration of our relationship with technology, its similarities with the one we have with religion, the tools involved in both processes, and its impact on us and in our sacred/private space. Mise-en-scène will consist in a liturgy performed by Marc Vilajuana (voice, effects, hand drum), Adrià Grandia (acoustic and MIDI hurdy-gurdy, modular synth, laptop, aerophones), Carlos Martorell (coding, synths, motion sensors, artiphon) and a real-time reactive AI trained with religious scores.

Interdependence with Richie Hawtin: AI for humans

Holly Herndon, Matt Dryhust

In dieser Diskussion sprengen wir die binäre Trennung von Mensch und Maschine im Prozess des Musikmachens, untersuchen Möglichkeiten, wie KI-Systeme dazu beitragen könnten, dass mehr Menschen bezahlt werden, anstatt verdrängt zu werden, und diskutieren die Notwendigkeit, dass KünstlerInnen im Prozess der Entwicklung von KI-Tools teilhaben.

QUINTESSENCE PRIZE

Quintessence Dome Lab Award Ceremony Award ceremony/ curated visit to the winner installation/ panel discussion. QUINTESSENCE DOME LAB is a 4 weeks artist residence organized by Espronceda, Institute of Art and Culture (IMMENSIVA) in collaboration with Mira Festival, UCA, MEET Digital Center Milan, Helsinki XR Centre and with the funding of Institut Ramon Llull. The participants will create an immersive project in different teams. In this ceremony the winner will be announced and the work showcased in a live connection.

Late Night Party.

The Glad Scientist and TribeXR

Live Music/ VR experience/ performance The Glad Scientist, is an innovative genre pushing virtual reality artist and musician. He is based in Osaka, however his work is known worldwide. His work includes live Audio Visual performances incorporating EKG technology, VR, and more: VR DJ dance party Sponsored by TribeXR will be a fun addition to the dome allowing a place to break free, dance, and enjoy the talents of worldwide Virtual Reality DJ’s.

SKNXSYNTH

Performer: Anna Pompermaier (AT), Project Artists: Cenk Guzelis (AT), Josecarlos Florez (PE), Mohsen Hazrati (IR)

A xenotransplantative skin Live Performance/ Digital interaction The xenotransplantative skin project behaves as a digital skin that interfaces human and non-human entities to change spatial perception, create sensual friction, construct a self-image through detachments from bodily self and a space of negotiation between the self and the other self, oscillating between virtual and physical.

Amazonia

LGM#2” Quadrature (GE), “Temazcalli” Josecarlos Florez (PE), “Simulacrum” María Almena (ES), “ABVXHMN” Cenk Güzelis, Anna Pompermaier, Burkart Schwaighofer, “RTTT” Mohsen Hazrati (IR), “A fourth dimensional travel guide” Kris Pilcher (US).

The Gaia Hypothesis Exhibition / Curated visit by artists and curator “Amazonia” is a collective exhibition curated by Alejandro Martín that goes from the sounds coming from space to the earth to Mesoamerican indigenous ceremony. Combining ritualistic dance with interactive screens and AR/VR experiences, Amazonia speaks to the current pandemic situation where the Ecosystem rules over humans, altering the dynamics of the Anthropocene era. The Amazon is burning by human actions and at the same time the power of Nature has the ability to re-initiate the “game” following the Gaia hypothesis.

Stargazer

Kris Pilcher (US), Cenk Guzelis (AT), Josecarlos Florez (PE), Quadrature (DE) and Mohsen Hazrati (IR), Curated by Santeri Suominen (FI)

“Stargazer” is a hybrid deeply participatory installation, which consists of two complementary and connected parts: a globally accessible mysterious virtual reality world in Mozilla Hubs and a spherical projection site in Barcelona. It encourages attendees into spatial exploration and deep engagement, to traverse a border between a virtual and physical world and connect with someone on the other side: Ars Electronica visitors from around the world can meet and interact with local people in Barcelona by visiting the space in Mozilla Hubs and interacting with its elements, and vice versa, Barcelona locals can interact with an international audience by visiting the dome projection site and engaging with its elements.

Ars Electronica Barcelona Garden Show

EXHIBITION: The show will present the most recent productions and acquisitions of .BEEP {collection;}: the historical works Das tangible Bild and The Endless Sandwich both by Peter Weibel and Vestibular_1 by Albert Barqué-Duran & Marc Marcenit. Three brand new works will also be exhibited, produced thanks to grants awarded to Mónica Rikić by New Home of Mind, Roc Parés by Doble Consciència and Santi Vilanova (Playmodes) by Forms. The three projects have been selected through a public call of the Institut Ramon Llull, NewArtFoundation and Hangar. 

Ars Electronica Barcelona Garden Taxis

Featuring Antoni Muntadas (ES), Antoni Abad (ES), Alba G. Corral (ES), Playmodes (ES), Josep Manuel Berenguer (ES), Marcel·lí Antúnez (ES), Eugènia Balcells (ES), Joan Fontcuberta (ES), Mario Santamaría (ES), 300.000 Kms (ES) Interviews by Antonia Folguera (ES). 

ARTIST STUDIO VISITS: Ars Electronica Garden Barcelona presents taxis visiting ateliers and studios of some of the artists from Catalonia working in the field of practices and experiences of interdisciplinary collaborations.

Push My Buttons: Sequence All. 

Hacking Numeric Keyboards  Workshop on how to hack a keyboard and turn it into a step sequencer or any other conceivable controller for synthesizers. We may undertake this transformation in such a way that no screen is required, creating a direct link between keyboard and sound operation, strongly relying on the musician's hearing and memory. The focus will be placed on the conception of musical interfaces and their implementation in different hardware. 

Algorave by Toplap Barcelona (ES) 

Toplap Barcelona (ES) 

LIVE PARTY/ MUSIC EVENT Algoraves bring together the improvisation and the code scope of a live coding session with the languages and the rituals of the dance floor. During the live writing and reading of the code, and the unfolding of the musical improvisation, the audience dances, thinks and listens in a uniquely intertwined way, helping musicians make sense and do the real creative work in making a great party. 

On Code. The Uncertainty Of Meaning And Doing

Lina Bautista (CO), Daniel Moreno Roldán (ES), Agnès Pe (ES), Ángel Faraldo (ES), Carolina Jiménez (ES), Lluís Nacenta (ES) 

ROUNDTABLE: How does code interfere with the listening process? Code allows the ear to navigate the listening interface, while it happens to narrow its sensitive scope. It crosses the interface, the membrane which separates but also connects, unfolding the vibration of the air, the zone of inter/intra-action, negotiation and distribution of attention and meanings, between the (dis)orders of the emitted and the heard sounds. 

Facing Uncertainty and Its Discontents 

Pau Alsina (ES), Roc Parés (ES/MX), Marina Garcés (ES), Joan Soler-Adillon (ES), Tere Badia (ES), Pau Waelder (ES).

ROUNDTABLE: While we get used to dealing with those events in which the probability of a certain situation occurring is not known: what does it mean to live in a context of uncertainty? How to take the risk of uncertainty and try to slide their gains? How arts, sciences, technologies and thought have learned from it and propelled their practices of uncertainty?  

An Uncertain but Irresistible Revolution 

Héctor Ayuso (ES) with Carla Cascales Alimbau (ES), Xavi Cardona / Boldtron (ES), Enric Godes / Vasava (ES

ROUNDTABLE: In a technological world in which the present has eternalized and the oblivion is the security of the next innovation, what we call reality is a magma in which floats an endless number of images, data, pieces of information, flashbacks and promises of liberation. This fact requires us to find other rules, other ways of reading and new ways of looking through unexpected paths. 

Art and Science of the Political Ecology of Disasters 

José Luis de Vicente (ES), Joana Moll (ES), Andy Gracie (UK), Israel Rodríguez (ES), Ingrid Guardiola (ES), relator Vanina Hofman (AR) 

ROUNDTABLE: Catastrophes and vulnerability have brought us to the forefront the urgency of acting against the consequences of the Anthropocene. We will explore all the possible futures ahead, facing the interactions between biological and ecological systems, but also the media ecology, within a relational ecology of practices where art, science and technology collide. 

On Bio_Sonic_Agencies. 

Brandon LaBelle (US), Robertina Šebjanič (SI), Oscar Martín (ES), Vanessa Lorenzo (ES), Laura Benítez (ES). 

ROUNDTABLE: In a world dominated by the visual, could contemporary resistances be auditory? What is the materiality of sound? How does the materiality of sound affect listening? What resistances can be configured from working with biomaterials and sound? Do these bio_sonic_agencies open up other possible spaces that do not exist in the visual regime? 

Sónar+D: Future Perspectives of Music Technology

Sónar+D (ES)

Sónar+D contributes to this edition of Ars Electronica Festival by bringing an artists’ conversation on the future of music technology in the era of AI, and a video performance capsule uniting music and artificial intelligence.

Solar Orchard Garden

ESPRONCEDA - Institute of Art & Culture (ES), MIRA Festival (ES), Insitute Ramon Llull (ES), Helsinki XR Center (FI), ./studio3, Institut for Experimental Architecture (AT), MEET Digital Culture Center (IT), UCA (UK)

The Solar Orchard Garden is a complex system that activates the curiosity of visitors / participants by play with two complementary concepts: quintessence, the fifth element of alchemy, and the Gaia Hypothesis, which looks at Earth as a self-regulated complex system.

Uncertainty and Ecology

Hangar (ES), NewArtFoundation (ES), .BEEP { collection;} (ES), UOC - ISEA Barcelona (ES) Institut Ramon Llull (ES), OFFF Barcelona (ES)

Uncertainty and ecology are two of the keywords in this year's edition that pose two big questions that haunt us at this time of the global pandemic. Ars Electronica Barcelona Garden aims to account for the diversity of ways in which the arts, sciences, technologies and thought are facing the endless possibilities that fly over our times. Within this will to interconnect politics with technology and nature Barcelona is here presented through a network of heterogeneous agents made of individuals, nodes, clusters or hubs connecting between each other and to the world.