sónar 2024 completes festival lineup with AI use in creative industries as sónar+D's theme

Sónar and Sónar+D 2024 unveil lineups and AI programs

Sónar 2024, Barcelona’s festival of music, innovation, and creativity, which runs from June 13th to 15th, completes its musical lineup for the concerts and DJ sets and rounds up the main topics of its Sónar+D program focusing on AI. More than 200 shows, DJ sets, activities, and collaborations packed into three days make up the program of Sónar 2024, including exhibitions, performances, multi-screen audiovisual conferences, masterclasses, and open-forum discussions on the use of artificial intelligence in the creative industries, including music and movies.

Sónar teams up with designboom to showcase the festival and Sónar+D’s musicians, creatives, and researchers employing artificial intelligence in their works. Visitors attending Sónar+D 2024 who don’t want to miss out on the Sónar music festivities need not worry since the AI discussions and interactive performances take place during the day festival, spread across the stages in the same venue. In this way, they can sit down and listen to an audiovisual lecture on AI, then walk to a techno party right next door when they feel like it.

For the first time, the event brings together leaders in the creative field, such as Superblue from Miami, Monom from Berlin, Oboria Digital from Zaragoza (The Sphere, Las Vegas), and Moment Factory from Montreal, to spotlight the results of using artificial intelligence in art and what the creatives have made so far out of AI and its technologies.

images courtesy of Sónar

Sónar+D 2024 talks about AI in music, games and films

An in-depth exploration of the use of AI in the creative industries emerges in Sónar+D 2024’s lineup. Researcher, writer, and activist Sasha Costanza-Chock dives into avoiding biases from using technology such as AI, which is a result of white, male, and privileged perspectives, while writer, researcher, and ‘abogamer’ Micaela Mantegna goes through the complex regulations and intellectual property in the field of video games concerning AI. Sónar+D 2024 also returns with its AI & Music program, powered by the European Commission’s initiative S+T+ARTS. Over the next three years, Sónar looks into the developments between artificial intelligence and music, and this year, performances and audiovisual lectures from Sevdaliza, Lee Gamble, Moisés Horta aka , and Myriam Bleau & Nien Tzu Weng display the concrete and continuous progress of adopting AI technologies in music.

Sónar 2024, Barcelona’s festival of music, innovation, and creativity, runs from June 13th to 15th

At Sónar+D 2024’s AI & Music program, visitors can attend the open forum ‘We are the Music Makers’ to understand the bond between AI technologies and music, a discussion led by Thor Magnusson from Intelligent Instruments, Sergi Jorda, designer of the Reactable and Professor at the UPF, technologist and researcher Anna Xambó, and Magda Polo, a researcher at the University of Barcelona. For those who want a more interactive set, the AI Performance Playground, supervised by journalist, artist, and creative technologist Peter Kirn, asks visitors to participate in a collective performance that investigates AI interfaces and software. Here, the visitors have the chance to use AI technologies themselves rather than sit and listen to talks.

Sónar 2024 teams up with designboom to showcase the festival’s AI technologies in the creative industries

Aside from the AI playground, two masterclasses from Nicole L’Huillier and Marta Verde show the visitors how artists use AI in their practice, while a selection of projects blending AI and music are exhibited in the Project Area for them to walk through and experience. Even movies are now powered and influenced by AI technologies, and in Sónar+D 2024’s program, the 2nd edition of +RAIN Film Festival plays films made exclusively with AI. The international film festival, co-organized with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, demonstrates examples of what films in the future could be like when AI technologies are used to create them. The film festival continues from June 13th to 15th at Sónar by Day, with the screening of the winning films and the AI & Blockchain Creative Summit. The call for submissions for films created with AI ends on March 13th, 2024.

talks and conferences explore the use of AI in the creative industries in Sónar+D 2024’s lineup

Sónar 2024 festival lineup with use of AI in music

After trying out the interactive performances, attending conferences, and watching movies made by AI, visitors vibe with music at several of Sónar 2024’s shows in Barcelona. The day-and-night festival returns to Fira Montjuïc and Fira Gran Via, and artists, technologists, scientists, and specialists from more than 30 countries play a wide range of musical genres, from electronic, disco, house, and pop to R&B, post-punk, black metal, and hyperpop. The performers include Jessi Ware, Air, Vince Staples, Kaytranada, Danny Tenaglia, The Martinez Brothers, Kerri Chandler, Paul Kalkbrenner, Richie Hawtin, VTSS, Anetha, Jennifer Cardini b2b HAAi, Charlotte de Witte, Reinier Zonneveld, Ben Böhmer and more (for the complete lineup, check outSónar 2024’s list).

Sónar+D 2024 also returns with its AI & Music program, which looks into the relationship between AI and music

Barcelona’s festival also brings the Printworks stage to Europe for the first time. The brand new stage build, framed with advanced AV production, leads the collaboration between SonarLab and Printworks and graces the land of Sónar by Night on June 14th and 15th. Another highlight of the program comes from Sevdaliza, one of the figures in contemporary avant-garde electronica. The Dutch-Iranian artist, director, and performer uses artificial intelligence to explore modern femininity through her music and visual imagery, a theme that falls in line with Sónar+D 2024’s program. The Sónar 2024 festival lineup in Barcelona goes round the clock since visitors can attend Sónar by Day, from 3pm until midnight, Sónar by Night, 8:30pm until 7am the next day, or if they have the energy, both events.

at Sónar+D 2024’s AI & Music program, visitors can attend the open forum ‘We are the Music Makers’

Outside of Sónar and Sónar+D 2024, Barcelona lights up as the epicenter for electronic music and cultural innovation during Sónar Week, which runs from June 13th to 16th. Aside from the programs at Fira Montjuïc and Fira Gran Via, OFFSónar is held across three stages at Poble Espanyol de Montjuïc, events focused on record labels, top DJs, and clubbing experiences on the international scene. Sónar’s international tour also kicks off with the 3rd edition of Sónar Lisbon, to be held at Parque Eduardo VII from March 22nd to 24th. The festival features Paul Kalkbrenner, 2manydjs invite Éclair Fifi & Erol Alkan, Bonobo DJ set, Eliza Rose, Branko and many more (full list here).