Sónar 2026 - The programme for Sónar+D 2026 is an invitation to change our relationship with technology

26/03/2026The programme for Sónar+D 2026 is an invitation to change our relationship with technology

After previously announcing the new home for Sónar+D, Llotja de Mar, today we unveil this year’s programme alongside more details about ‘our event like no other’.

Reactivating the majestic neo-classical building in the centre of Barcelona with a two-day programme on 18th and 19th June, Sónar+D 2026 - now managed entirely by non-profit organisation Fundación Sónar - is an invitation to think critically, constructively, and optimistically about what comes next, at a moment when the distance between present and future has never felt closer.

In a world where instant digital communication is the norm, AI is part of our daily lives, and we’re all ‘users’, it’s time to move from passive consumption of technology to active engagement with it.

Sónar+D 2026 responds to this challenge with a programme that falls under three themes: ‘Al & Music’, ‘Beyond the Screen’, and ‘Digital Gardens and Dark Forests’.

Sónar+D 2026 lineup

18.19 June | 10am - 9pm | Llotja de Mar

AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS

Beyond the Screen

Digital Gardens and Dark Forests

Performances

Exhibition
Arts Korea Lab | AUSGANG studio | Superbe | Volvox Labs | + more to be announced

Communities+D

Barcelona Music Tech Hub | The Generative Art Museum | + more to be announced

This year’s edition features a typically multidisciplinary programme of talks, panels, workshops, exhibitions, and performances that dissolves the boundaries between thought, action and experimentation. Designed to be experienced as a separate event or together with Sónar 2026 at Fira Gran Via, this year is the most accessible edition to date, with affordably-priced standalone tickets on sale for the first time.

Heading towards a Post-AI reality

AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS returns to Sónar+D for a third year running. This year, the focus shifts to the frictions we’re encountering as the music sector moves towards a post-AI world. Looking beyond the AI bubble, we’re asking how musicians and researchers are adapting to a new reality where AI use is second nature, and how they’re preparing for what comes next.

This year, for the first time, Sónar+D opens with a concert. On Thursday morning at the brand-new Stage+D, celebrated Catalan jazz pianist Ignasi Terraza performs a duet with an AI system developed by UPC researcher Philippe Salembier; the latest iteration of the Piano & AI project, which first appeared at AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival in 2021

This year’s AI & Music Open Forum features multidisciplinary artist Rob Clouth; AI researcher François Pachet, previously of Sony and Spotify; artist and researcher Nao Tokui, founder of AI instrument company Neutone; and Anna Xambó, Head of the Computational Sonic Arts Lab at Queen Mary University London’s Centre for Digital Music (C4DM); plus other special guests who’ll appear throughout the programme. This is a chance to hear different perspectives on the push-and-pull relationship between musicians and AI; later in the day, we invite you to go deeper with individual talks by François Pachet, Nao Tokui, and Anna Xambó upstairs in the new Àgora+D. And a familiar face at Sónar+D, Magda Polo Pujadas is joined by genome specialist Dr. Miquel Àngel Pujana from biomedical research lab IDIBELL to explain how they’ve used DNA sequences to make music.

Already announced as part of the Sónar lineup at Fira Gran Via are AI-powered live shows by Daito Manabe and Reinier Zonneveld presents R2. On Friday before his show, we’ve invited Daito Manabe to Llotja de Mar to talk to Google DeepMind’s Jeff Chang (who also produces progressive house as JC++) about how he’s used DeepMind’s musical tools to build his new set. Later that day, the AI Performance Playground participants take over Àgora+D for a collaborative show, after three days spent preparing between Llotja de Mar and LaSalle-URL’s IASLab. And after opening with an AI-driven performance, Sónar+D 2026 closes with one: on Friday evening anarchic hacker duo dadabots invite the audience to take part in their generative audio assault by providing live prompts.

Beyond the Screen – the return of humanity and physicality to digital culture

The screen – from smartphones to gigantic LED displays – has been the defining creative medium of the past decade. The dominant trend has been for higher-definition visuals, with more elaborate and artificially perfect details. But the backlash has also grown in volume, which is why we’ve invited a host of creatives that are injecting physicality and humanity back into the digital world through creative use of code and thoughtful design.

On Thursday Singapore-based artist and designer niceaunties explains how she’s reimagining the ‘auntie’ in her surreal, fantasy- and kawaii-influenced creations. We’ve also invited artist collective Keiken (Japanese for “experience”) - who bring speculative futures to life through various games, films, installations and performances - to explain the art of worldbuilding, and lead a workshop, Perception Game, that invites participants to reconsider how they connect with what’s around them.

We’ve asked playful visual designer and coder Internet2 to take us through The Wishlist, a workshop that examines our fear of being listened to by our own devices for advertising purposes. Visual artists should bookmark a pair of workshops by desilence and The Glad Scientist that teach participants how to get the most out of industry-standard tools like TouchDesigner and re-think their creative workflows. And as part of the TIMES programme, Luca Cingolani aka Outer explains how he uses generative AI to create live visuals, inspired by his work on ‘The Talk’ last year.

We’ve also programmed a trio of activities that blur the lines between lecture, performance, and demonstration, in true Sónar+D style. Accompanied on stage by a robot and surrounded by cameras, Catalan artist Mónica Rikić explores thorny questions about the care sector’s use of robotics. Live-coding musician Roxanne Harris projects her own algorithms behind her as she performs, and another creative coder/musician, Eneritz Tejada, integrates the body into her work, using wearable technology she builds herself.

Digital Gardens and Dark Forests – alternative futures for the Internet

In 2026, the future of the web hangs in the balance: what began as a liberated space for personal expression is now dominated by corporations, guided by metrics, and driven by commercial interests. These days, we’re all ‘users’, but why does it feel like we’re the ones being used? This year Sónar+D looks at how different actors are plotting an escape from the current model of the internet. Whether they’re creating private communities free from corporate digital surveillance, or cultivating their own idiosyncratic corners of digital space, many of them are looking at the internet's past to shape its future.

Last time Yancey Strickler came to Sónar+D it was to talk about Kickstarter, the platform he co-founded in 2009; these days, he’s helping artists and creators re-take control of the internet. He opens Stage+D on Friday with The Theory of The Internet, an interactive lecture. The day before on the same stage, New Zealander brand consultant and educator Eugene Healey responds to an age of digital entropy with Social Media: A Fight With a God We Cannot Name, a talk that examines how algorithms have fragmented the media, short-circuited our attention spans, and dissolved mass culture.

Catalan artist Joana Moll won Barcelona’s Premi Ciutat for Digital Culture in 2025 for The User and The Beast, which delivers a history of telecommunications to the audience in a way they won’t expect. And author, designer and technologist Mindy Seu brings her latest book The Sexual History of the Internet to life, with a participative collective reading.

Since 2020, online community 0xSalon have been hosting experimental events and critiquing digital culture. They bring FAU0X Salon, a card game inspired by tarot and RPGs (role-playing games), to Sónar+D. Chia Amisola is a product designer for Figma by day, and a web artist by night. The Filipino artist looks back to a time where the web still felt personal and handmade, (remember GeoCities?). We’ve invited her to explain how we can carry that spirit into the present in a talk, and to lead a workshop that teaches us how to cultivate our own tiny corners of the internet.

Multidisciplinary artist Mario Santamaría made his name with ‘guided tours’ of the internet that visited servers and fibre-optic cables. At Sónar+D he heads down literal and metaphorical rabbit holes, as he introduces us to the world of ‘zombie infrastructure’, the obsolete pipelines and tunnels under our feet.

Performances that go beyond music

In another Sónar+D tradition, Each day at Llotja de Mar closes with a mini-programme of performances These experimental, confrontational shows go beyond music, questioning our relationship with technology and reasserting the physical nature of live performance.

Sound artist, experimental performer and instrument maker Evicshen is part of a long tradition of confrontational noise acts. Her physical, sonically abrasive performances turn the whole room into a stage, often using home-made instruments that function like prosthetics. She’s joined on Thursday by another performance artist, Fitnesss, whose muscular, physical presence is complemented by Spanish dancer and choreographer Riusforza in a brand-new, unique show that they’re developing especially for Sónar+D 2026.

On Friday before dadabots there’ll be a special show from pioneering Catalan experimental producer Shoeg, using a chain of controllers, synthesisers and motion sensors.

A first look at the Exhibition and Communities programme

The full programme for Expo+D - including exhibits selected through this year’s Open Call (now closed) - will be revealed in the next few weeks but three items are revealed today. Brooklyn studio Volvox Labs bring Astral Twin to the courtyard of Llotja de Mar, while Belgian studio Superbe’s interactive installation from0 uses sound, movement and visuals to reflect on the versatility of language.

Arts Korea Lab also return to Sónar+D for the third year running, with an exhibition showcase and presentation session. Berlin creative studio AUSGANG are also involved at Llotja de Mar, preparing a special intervention at Àgora+D using their distinctive mix of tentacle-like cables and neon lighting.

This year Sónar+D also heads to Fira Gran Via for the very first time, with specially commissioned digital art installations located within the main Sónar venue. More details will be announced very soon.

There’ll also be a series of activities that give the floor to local creative and technological actors: Communities+D. The full programme will be announced soon, but today we can announce our friends at Barcelona Music Tech Hub return with another Startups Pitch Session, as well as frequent Sónar+D collaborators The Generative Art Museum for a Creative Coding Barcelona meetup.

The most accessible Sónar+D to date: standalone tickets on sale for the first time

This year, there are more ways than ever to attend Sónar+D.

New this year are Sónar+D 2-Day Tickets and Day Tickets, which offer standalone access to the programme at Llotja de Mar. And if you want to combine Sónar+D 2026 with Sónar 2026 at Fira Gran Via, you can still grab a SonarPass+D. All tickets are available at the Sónar 2026 tickets page here.

SonarBus shuttle services will run from Llotja de Mar to Fira Gran Via, ensuring quick transfers from one venue to another for anyone who wants to attend both events.

Last call for the 2026 AI & Music Performance Playground

A final reminder: applications for the 2026 AI & Music Performance Playground close this Sunday, 29th March, at midnight CEST. Head here to find out more and apply to take part in a three-day hacklab on 17th, 18th and 19th June as part of Sónar+D.