Sónar 2002: not just music

What links electronic music to design and architecture? Or Gaudí’s Catalan modernism to the Nordic and technological Helsinki? And what has Diego Armando Maradona got to do with the sounds of the electronic avantgarde? At first one might think nothing at all; instead the points where they touch are not lacking. The answer can be found in the most famous festival of electronic music in Europe, Sónar (from 13 to 15 June in Barcelona).

The Catalan village fair, reaching its ninth edition, is the affirmation that the diffusion of internet and new technology has radically changed creativity and opened up the dialogue between very different disciplines. Brought together under the same roof – that of the Centro di Cultura Contemporània, the Contemporary Art Museum and the Centro Santa Monica – we find music, art and technology and, for the first time, also architecture and design.

And then with world cup fever in the air, the return to public life of the Argentine ‘pibe de oro’, no longer as a player but as a testimonial. And an exceptional graphic identity for the 2002 edition of Sónar which, according to the organisers, “looks to surprise and detach itself from the graphic clichés which dominate the world of electronic music”.

If music is the main feature – from the Pet Shop Boys, icons of eighties electro-pop, to artists from the Berlin label Morr Music, amongst the trendiest of the moment, from super DJs such as American Carl Cox to musicians who have created their own innovative style, such as Arto Lindsay – the side orders are no less important.

“Viva Helsinki” is the title of Sonarmàtica, the section dedicated to graphics, multimedia, design and net-art which brings us to discover the different faces of the Finnish capital. Such as? ‘Habbo Hotel’ – a virtual hotel where you can hang out chatting to other guests, drink a drink in the bar or swim in the pool – is one of the most popular virtual communities in recent years. Conceived from the joined forces of the Valvamo architecture studio and the media company Mindworks, ‘Micromovie’ is instead a media vest with incorporated a screen dvd video 7”. Presented at the Tampere Film Festival in the spring of this year, it has taken a years work.

So from music to art, from design to architecture, it’s a small step. We have ‘Media Architecture’, a series of debates and conferences which begins with the presupposition that the diffusion of digital and the growing popularity of the web as a space for virtual exchange has enlarged the field of action of architecture and design studios. Does this mean rethinking the role of designers? To discuss it are Vincente Guallart, director of Metápolis, Charlotte Pöchhacker, curator of the Graz Architecture Biennial, architects Fredy Massad, Carles Llop, Enric Ruiz Geli the ‘soul’ of the festival of architecture and video ‘‘A+A Arquitecturanimación’, organised by Col.legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya. Meanwhile, artists Marc Mascort and Ricard Sans will present the Cd-Rom ‘Attraction Hotel-Gaudi’s project for New York’, a virtual reconstruction of a New York hotel designed by Dalì and never built.

It is useless to deny, the phenomenon of electronic music (which appears in the form of music, art, graphics, design or architecture) is no longer just a niche. Confirmation of this comes by way of another initiative, the first of its kind organised by the Pompidou Centre. An exhibition entitled ‘Sonic Process’, dedicated to electronic music. A compendium of what we have heard over the last decade, collected though with a particular perspective, that of its union with visual arts with an aim to underline the continuity between music and images. On show work from around ten artists, visual artists (Mathieu Briand, Flow Motion, Mike Kelley, Gabriel Orozco), directors/photographers (Doug Aitken, Renée Green) and musicians (Coldcut, Rupert Huber and Richard Dorfmeister, Scanner, David Shea). To complete the exhibition is ‘MpTree’ (Multi-Purpose Tree), an educational space conceived by Spanish designer Martí Guixé in which to read, look and listen (around a hundred tracks, 30 videos and 20 internet sites).

13.6.2002 – 15.6.2002
Sónar. 9th Barcelona International Festival of advanced music and multimedia art
- CCCB, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Montalegre 5
- Plaça dels Àngels
- MACBA, The Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona, Plaça dels Àngels 1
- Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Rambla de les Flors 7
- Capella de l’Àntic Hospital de la Santa Creu, Hospital 56
http://www.sonar.es

until 1.7.2002
Sonic Process. A new geography of sounds
MACBA, The Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona, Plaça dels Àngels 1
http://www.sonic-process.org
http://www.macba.es/proces-sonic.html