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Join us at Sónar+D 2025 Unveiling this year’s themes: AI + Creativity, Futuring the creative industries, and Worlds to come
An event like no other
Where you don’t sit down We might be a conference, but we think like concert or club night, with talks and panels side-by-side with radical performances and our interactive exhibition space Project Area.Where you meet people you won’t meet anywhere elseDifferent worlds collide at Sónar+D, the only conference with a music festival attached. Our participants and audience are a unique mix of backgrounds, interests and expertise.Where you take the future home with youGet to know the future before it becomes the present. Our programming balances imaginative ideas and bold thinking with practical content and networking opportunities. 
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AI has been marketed as a tool for automating creativity or making music from text prompts - but what would happen if we went in the opposite direction? What would happen if we learnt to play AI like an instrument? Les Paul’s sound on sound and flanging, distortion pedals, the Moog ladder filter, the TR-808’s faulty transistors: instrument makers have always pushed technology outside its intended use and past the breaking point. How can we make AI musicianship more expressive - and how can we break it? Think you want to help answer these questions? Then we’d like you to apply for the 2025 edition of the AI Performance Playground, which returns to Sónar+D as part of this year’s AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS programme, with support from La Salle-URL. Between 11th and 14th June, as part of Sónar+D 2025 in Barcelona, we’ll bring together a selected group of 12 participants from different backgrounds and disciplines to collaboratively explore and expand their use of AI and machine learning for performance, under the guidance and tutelage of renowned technologist, artist and writer Peter Kirn and experimental music producer and researcher Anna Xambó. Not sure if you’re qualified? Don’t worry, we’re looking for applications from across the spectrum. You might be an experienced AI coder or researcher, or you might be an electronic musician, instrumentalist, or singer with little working knowledge of AI. Within the hacklab environment, you’ll combine your skills critically, creating unexpected new mixes and discoveries. The onus throughout will be on collaboration, experimentation, and sharing: the idea isn’t to work on individual projects, but to create something entirely new as part of a group. You’ll also have the opportunity to experience plenty of Sónar+D, Sónar by Day and Sónar by Night, with one of the world’s most forward-thinking music festivals serving as the perfect inspiration and backdrop for the hacklab. You’ll need to be in Barcelona from 11th to 14th June for the duration of the Hacklab, with group sessions over the first three days, followed by a short ensemble performance on Saturday at SonarÀgora. The deadline for applications is midnight (CET) on Friday 28th February. You can read the full guidelines and submit your application here. All applications will be reviewed personally by Peter and Anna, with the selected participants notified by the end of March. Good luck!
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If you can’t wait until June to return to Fira Gran Via, this one’s for you. Between the 4th and 7th February, Fira de Barcelona hosts the 2025 edition of ISE (Integrated Systems Europe), the world’s most important audiovisual industry event. Both Sónar and Barcelona creative studio MELT (formerly known as Glassworks) have clear ties to this global industry, which is why we’ve joined forces with Catalan broadcaster 3Cat and local artist Maria Arnal to present ‘Flors de veu’ in Pavilion 8.1 (booth 8A200) at ISE 2025 in Fira Gran Via. It’s a unique immersive experience that uses spatial computing and new musical instruments created with AI to explore recent scientific research that has identified flowers as the plant kingdom’s equivalent to ears.
With ‘Flors de veu’, we’re inviting the audience at ISE 2025 to step into a sonic digital garden and experience firsthand the relationship between the virtual and the real, with visitors’ singing voices transformed into new vocal instruments and visual elements using AI. As a visitor sings, a unique, temporary visual representation of their voice in the form of a flower is created, with their vocal contributions also stored to a digital sound archive, a dataset that becomes the collective memory of ‘Flors de veu’. In addition, from Tuesday to Thursday, each day at 17:00, you’ll be able to join a special Meet&Drink networking session at our joint stand with MELT and 3Cat. Each session will feature a special talk about a project focused on immersive and/or interactive audiovisual experiences: Tuesday 4th February - Layers of Reality:We’re joined by Ana Oliveras from Layers of Reality, who’s the director of Alfa5, a new sport centre featuring augmented reality technology which opened in Barcelona just last month. Wednesday 5th February - Flors de veu:Xavi Tribó (MELT) and Antònia Folguera (Sónar+D) explain the technical and creative process behind ‘Flors de Veu’. Thursday 6th February - Produktia, Framemov and Onionlab:Local creative studios Onionlab, Framemov and Produktia detail their latest work with interactive technologies, with a particular focus on the SPACE project, which applies these technologies to architecture and interior design.
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