SÓNAR+D 2025 TO EXPLORE NEW HORIZONS OF CREATIVITY AND THE ARTS IN AN ERA OF OMNIPRESENT AI

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Dozens of artists, technologists, scientists, visionaries, and radical thinkers from the fields of audiovisual arts, music, engineering, quantum computing, and interface design will present the new ways humans and AI are interacting, and explore the transformative potential of the technology.

• Sónar+D 2025 presents more than a hundred activities designed to inspire, train, and connect creators, professionals from various disciplines, and the general public, providing a dynamic platform for the fostering and projection of local and international talent.
   
• The program is structured around three thematic axes: ‚AI + Creativity‘, which examines how the tools and approaches of AI are affecting artistic production; ‚Futuring the Creative Industries‘, a space to reflect on changes and opportunities in the sector; and ‚Worlds to Come‘, an exploration of emerging scenarios that will define the relationships between technology, culture, and society.
   
• Interactive forums, round tables, master classes, performative conferences, workshops, multidisciplinary shows, and an exhibition area with dozens of projects, will open the door to discovering the future before it becomes the present.
   

Among this year’s invited figures are Libby Heaney (UK) presented by SEIDOR, Tega Brain (AU), Rebecca Fiebrink (UK), Xin Liu (CN), yaboihanoi (TH), Albert.DATA (ES), Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley (UK), Forensis & Bill Kouligas (INT), YESSI PERSE & laSADCUM (ES), and the premiere of ‘Ama’, the new project by Maria Arnal (ES).

• The festival expands its collaborations at a local and global level with renowned cultural, academic, and scientific entities such as the New Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Tabakalera, the Onassis Foundation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, University of the Arts London, IRCAM, IASlab at La Salle-URL; companies like Stability AI and Google Magenta, and pioneering AI projects like AudioStellar.
   
• Beyond AI, the program expands this year to offer a broad and multidisciplinary vision of the present and future, exploring themes ranging from digital sustainability and non-binary futurism to terraformation, space exploration, neurohacking, or emerging trends in internet culture, including incisive satires on techno-feudalism.
   

Sónar+D 2025 will be held on June 12, 13, and 14 at the Palau de Congressos de Fira Montjuïc, within Sónar by Day, offering attendees access to dozens of talks, debates, and performances from 10:00 AM, as well as more than 50 concerts and DJ sets

From digital sustainability and non-binary futurism to terraforming, space exploration, neurohacking and emerging trends in internet culture, this year’s Sónar+D programme explores the ideas that are shaping the present and the future.

For more details on the main programme announcement, head to sonar.es/en/programme/sonar-d

Sónar+D 2025 Program

“IA + Creativity”

+RAIN Film Festival (INT) | AI Performance Playground (INT) | AudioStellar presents ‘Territorios sonoros emergentes’ (AR) | Introducing AI & Music (INT) | Joanne Armitage ‘Automating Bodies: Power, Music and AI’ (UK) | Jordi Pons ‚Artistic trends in Music AI‘ (ES) | Maria Arnal presents ‚Ama‘ (ES) | Marije Baalman (NL) | R-010 & Venerandi presents ‚Phenomena‘ (ES) | Rebecca Fiebrink ‘Design your dream music AI tool’ (UK) | Ville Haimala presents ‚Hyporeal‘ (FI/DE) | yaboihanoi ‚Lemongrass & Bass: A Thai Recipe for AI Music‘ (TH)

“Futuring the Creative Industries”

‘Aquelarre Futurista’ with Berta Segura & Francesca Tur (ES) | Chris Watson & Izabella Dłużyk presenta ‚Białowieża‘ (UK/(PL) | ‘Hacking the world‘ with Berta Segura & Francesca Tur (ES) | Heith, James K and Günseli Yalcinkaya present ‚The Talk‘ live AV (EU) | How to future the creative industries (INT) | ‘Lux Mundi’ (ES) | ‘MAT(H)RASH: un nuevo manifesto del arte’  de Julieta Wibel y Mike Fernández con Samantha Hudson y YESSi PERSE (ES) | Music Tech Europe Academy: Startups Pitch Session (EU/ES) | Music Tech Dialogues: Creative Economy Data + DEMODAY (EU/ES) | Saint Abdullah, Eomac and Rebecca Salvadori present ‚A Forbidden Distance‘ (INT) | Salome Asega ‘Architect or Gardener’ (US)

“Worlds To Come”Albert.DATA ‚SYNAPTICON‘ (ES) | Animistic Beliefs and Jeisson Drenth present ‚Thức Tỉnh‘ AV (NL) | Dania + Mau Morgó present ‚replica — relic‘ (IQ-AU/ES) | Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley ‘WE CAN’T PRETEND ANYMORE’ (UK) | Forensis and Bill Kouligas present ‚The Drum and The Bird‘ (INT) | Libby Heaney ‘Eat my Multiverse’ (UK) Presented by SEIDOR | Alice Sparkly Kat and Manuka Honey ‘Listen, the stars are talking’ (US/UK) | Safety Trance presents ‚DESTRUCCIÓN‘ (VE) | Tega Brain ‘Questions of Automation’ (AU) | Vica Pacheco presents ‚ITA‘ AV (MX) | Xin Liu ‚Cosmic Metabolism‘ (CN) | YESSi PERSE & laSADCUM present ‚CYBERMEDIEVAL‘ (ES)

„AI + Creativity“: New Tools, Applications, and Alternative Approaches to using AI

After nearly a decade leading the discussion on artificial intelligence in the arts, Sónar+D continues to explore the connections between AI and Creativity, as always, from a profoundly humanist perspective. 

With the help of top specialists in Human/Computer Interaction, this content block takes a practical approach to innovative tools, unconventional approaches, and alternative applications of AI in the fields of music, audiovisual arts, interface design, and performing arts.

The following activities are primarily aimed at creators from any artistic field, as well as all professionals directly or indirectly connected to the creative industries.

Highlights in the programme include:

• ‘Introducing AI & Music’ powered by S+T+ARTS: The largest European gathering of experts in music and AI meets at Sónar+D. In an open forum that inaugurates the festival on Thursday, June 12, ‘Introducing AI & Music’ powered by S+T+ARTS’ will bring together dozens of multidisciplinary artists, researchers, and top experts in Human/Computer Interaction and artificial intelligence applied to music. This opening session will feature representatives from platforms such as Stability AI, researchers from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, University of the Arts London, the Ministry of Culture, and Universitat de Barcelona, among others, as well as AI and music developers from around the world. This will be a unique opportunity to learn firsthand about the latest advances at the intersection of AI and creativity in sound. Organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of Spain – Towards Mondiacult 2025.
   
• The third edition of +RAIN Film Festival, the AI and film festival co-produced by Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Sónar, will take place throughout Sónar Week at CCCB, the UPF campus, and at the festival itself. +RAIN screens the most innovative and groundbreaking audiovisual works created entirely with AI, selected from 250 submissions from around the world. A special highlight this year is that many of the featured creators will reveal the behind-the-scenes of their works: how they developed all phases of an AI-based film, unveiling the processes and tools used. Two Sónar+D activities will be open to the general public: SUMMIT: Where attendees can learn about recent research, discover new talent, and engage in debates on the complex relationship between AI and creativity; and SCREENING: A special session screening the award-winning films of 2025. Additionally, SINAPSIS, a closed-door professional event, will act as an incubator for new ideas, exclusive to +RAIN participants.
   

Rebecca Fiebrink and Accessibility in Musical AI: Professor of Creative Computing at University of the Arts London, a pioneer in AI and music, and the creator of the innovative AI platform Wekinator (2008). Professor Fiebrink will present ‘Design Your Dream Music AI Tool’, a talk guiding attendees in designing personalized AI tools for music creation, highlighting how machine learning can empower artists without prior technical knowledge.

• Sónar+D 2025 will also explore the Fusion of AI and Non-Western Traditional Music: Led by Thai scientist and artist ญาบอยฮานอย (yaboihanoi). While yaboihanoi will present his most experimental side at Sónar, he has also designed significant tools for Google and TikTok, such as the LLM language model used in Doubao, the Chinese ChatGPT. This AI visionary will present a masterclass ‚Lemongrass & Bass: A Thai Recipe for AI Music‘, sharing his method for merging ancestral sounds with AI tools, expanding the limits of Western-coded musical composition.
   
• AudioStellar: A pioneering software for making music with AI inspired by data visualization and mining. Created in 2017 as a research project at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Argentina, by the collective of the same name, they return to Sónar+D in grand fashion with a performance lecture featuring images, dance, and sound titled ‘Emerging Sound Territories’, after being selected for Project Area 2024.
   
• AI in Live Performance: Sónar will present new work from Maria Arnal. Following a years long commitment to incorporating AI into her musical practice, Arnal will reveal the result of this work in the live premiere of her new show ‘Ama’. This show will be joined on the AI and Music programme by live performances from patten, Ville Haimala (‚Hyporeal‘), and R-010 & Venerandi (‚Phenomena‘), each of which take an innovative approach to integrating AI.
   

AI Performance Playground: A hacklab where 12 participants from fields including engineering, design, music, and audiovisual creation—selected from over 100 applicants worldwide—will work for three days with AI tools before presenting the results. The project is led by researchers Peter Kirn and Anna Xambó (Queen Mary University of London), with the support of IASlab at La Salle-URL.

„Imagining the Future of Creative Industries“: New Perspectives and Learnings for Industry Professionals

This thematic axis of Sónar+D 2025 is specially designed for professionals in the creative industries sector, offering a space for learning, inspiration, and reflection on the changes that will define its future.

The contents of this block address the needs and challenges of those working in programming, curation, cultural management, as well as in communication, advertising, experience design, trend research, and related fields. Through presentations, debates, and case studies, this space provides key insights to innovate, adapt, and connect with future opportunities, offering tools, knowledge, and innovation models for the sector.

The program of forums, debates, presentations, and shows presents different case studies that reflect the new models of creation, production, and exhibition emerging in digital arts.
 

In particular, the festival addresses institutional missions of bringing new ideas and trends closer to society in an environment saturated with media and content across channels. 

• Forum ‘How to Future the Creative Industries’: Sónar+D brings together top international experts and representatives of leading cultural institutions that have a special focus on digital arts. This event will feature contributions from Salome Asega of the New Museum in Manhattan; independent curator and founder of HERVISIONS, Zaiba Jabbar; and representatives from the Onassis Foundation, Serpentine Gallery, the NewArt Foundation, and Tabakalera, among others. This extraordinary gathering will explore, from different perspectives and experiences, the fundamental mission of cultural institutions to bring new creative ideas and trends to society in an era of constant change and acceleration.
   

Transformation and the Future of Cultural Curation: Sónar+D presents a unique meeting of curators and artistic directors from festivals, creative spaces, and museums. The event addresses the new challenges in curating cultural events and their necessary connection with trends emerging both in physical spaces and online. Participants include Bethany Andrzejak from Le Guess Who? (an international alternative music festival in Utrecht), Maguette Dieng from FOC/Jokkoo Collective (an artistic collective exploring electronic music from an Afrodiasporic perspective), Ikram Bouloum from Sónar, and María Berríos from MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona).

• Workshops and Dialogues on the Future: With an approach that combines critical vision and professional training, this hybrid format of talk, presentation, and workshop is titled ‘Hacking the World’: A Critical Vision of the Future. Trend analysts Berta Segura and Francesca Tur will offer an interactive session with the audience to analyze how marketing, geopolitics, technology, and digital culture are transforming the profiles of creators, audience formation, and the interactions between artists and the public.
   
• Digital Intervention and Cultural Heritage: Sónar+D will exhibit a replica of the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll to host ‘Lux Mundi’, a spectacular reinterpretation of the fresco paintings of this Romanesque masterpiece, created by four digital artists: Alba G. Corral, Massó, Desilence, and Hamill Industries, alongside the duo Tarta Relena. The piece was created for the apse of Taüll to commemorate its 900th anniversary. ‘Lux Mundi’ is an initiative of the Direcció General d’Innovació i Cultura Digital and the Direcció General de Patrimoni Cultural.
   
• TIMES, the European Network of Festivals for Multidisciplinary Collaboration and Co-Creation: The Sónar+D program also includes various activities organized under the framework of TIMES, a collaborative project between Sónar and nine other leading European festivals, co-financed by the European Union. Researcher and curator Margarida Mendes will give a special talk introducing two TIMES co-creations from 2024: Białowieża’ by Chris Watson & Izabella Dłużyk, and ‘A Forbidden Distance’ by Saint Abdullah, Eomac & Rebecca Salvadori. The second TIMES co-creation will also be featured this year at Sónar by Day. ‘The Talk’, is a multidisciplinary performance inspired by the first computer in the world, the Antikythera from Ancient Greece. This performance is created by musicians HEITH and James K, artist-researcher Günseli Yalcinkaya, and stage designer Andrea Belosi. 

MusicTech Europe returns once again to Sónar+D with a special program of activities, organized in collaboration with Barcelona Music Tech Hub. The closing ceremony of the Music Tech Europe Academy will feature the presentation of selected startups from the academy’s program. Additionally, there will be a special session of MusicTech Dialogues focused on the use of data in the creative economy.

„Worlds to Come“: Possible New Worlds Imagined by the Most Curious and Restless Minds

Sónar+D has always looked towards the future of the future. This year’s program covers everything from quantum computing and non-binary futurism to terraformation and interstellar travel.

A series of activities in diverse formats (radical talks, interactive shows, performative conferences, and even rituals) that imagine new worlds and invite Sónar’s audience to discover them before anyone else 

These are the audiovisual conferences, presentations, rituals, and radical performances imagining worlds to come at Sónar+D this year:

• Art and Quantum Computing: Libby Heaney, PhD in Quantum Science and the first artist in the world to use quantum computing in art, will present an original performance-conference titled ‘Eat My Multiverse’, where, through her captivating visual world, she will invite the audience to rethink the planetary status quo from a non-binary perspective. This content is presented by SEIDOR.
   
• Space Exploration: Xin Liu, artist and engineer, has worked at prestigious research centers such as MIT Media Lab and SETI. Her work, which she will present in an audiovisual conference titled ‘Cosmic Metabolism’, focuses on extraterrestrial exploration, and some of her work has already been launched into outer space to be tested in microgravity conditions or extreme space environments.
   
• Live Neurohacking: Experimental artist Albert.DATA, PhD in Cognitive Sciences and professor and researcher at La Salle-URL, will explore the boundaries of technology and the human brain with his performance ‘SYNAPTICON’, where he will display his brain activity using brain-computer interfaces, exposing his thoughts and emotions in real-time to the audience.
   

Interactive Digital Narratives: Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley will present an interactive session between video game and performance, titled ‘WE CAN’T PRETEND ANYMORE’, immersing the audience in her unique digital universe, where she navigates the history of Black trans people. A living narrative that only takes shape in dialogue with the audience.

• Alternative Technology for Digital Sustainability: Australian artist and environmental engineer Tega Brain, whose work involves coding and the web, will present a set of ideas and theses under the title ‘Questions of Automation’, ranging from creative coding to DIY approaches, shedding light on dark political and environmental issues and offering strategies to survive potential disasters generated by humanity.
   
• Astrology and Transgressive Pop Culture: Artists and visionary astrologers Alice Sparkly Kat and Manuka Honey will invite the audience to take part in a ritual, ‘Listen, the Stars Are Talking’, in which they will reclaim the impact of astrology on today’s pop culture, demonstrating its potential as fundamental part of many artists‘ and innovators‘ work.
   
• Multiformat Audiovisual Narrative: A striking portrait of German colonialism in Namibia. Forensis, the group investigating human rights violations associated with Forensic Architecture, joins forces with musician Bill Kouligas (known for his record label PAN) in ‘The Drum and the Bird’. This electrifying audiovisual narrative combines generative soundscapes, oral testimonies, and 3D cartographies to document the exploitation of Germany’s former colony, Namibia.
   
• The New Pop Aesthetics: Cultural analyst Julieta Wibel and creative technologist Mike Fernández will team up with artists Samantha Hudson and YESSi PERSE to analyze ‘Math Thrash’, the term Wibel proposes to define today’s digital pop aesthetics, which blend goth culture, fluorescent colors, memes, fantasy, and science fiction. Pop is no longer two-dimensional and friendly; it is 3D, viscous, neon, corrosive, and monstrous.
   
• ‘CYBERMEDIEVAL’: A Satire on Techno-Feudalism. One of the most exciting dance companies of the moment, laSADCUM, joins the multidimensional duo of flesh-and-blood avatars YESSi PERSE to present a new audiovisual show that will question the power of big tech companies in the digital era.

Groundbreaking Performances: Innovative Proposals Connecting Music, Visual Art, Dance, and Performance. Musician Dania and visual artist Mau Morgó will use instruments created with 3D scans of Mesopotamian artifacts from the British Museum to question our commitment to decolonization in the world premiere of their radical live collaboration ‘replica — relic’. The rave duo Animistic Beliefs and Jeisson Drenth explore mixed cultural identity in ‘Thức Tỉnh’, combining traditional sounds with contemporary perspectives. Luis Garbán (Cardopusher) debuts his audiovisual project Safety Trance with ‘DESTRUCCIÓN’, a show that fuses reggaeton, industrial, and breakcore. Vica Pacheco merges electroacoustic composition with her own 3D animations in ‘ITA’. Finally, Alice Sparkly Kat collaborates with local collective Akuyte on an audiovisual performance specially created for Sónar.

Still to come

Project Area: Very soon, Sónar will reveal the art and technology projects selected this year for Project Area, the largest interactive exhibition of Sónar+D to date, located at the heart of Sónar by Day. With more than 60 projects, most of them selected from 500 submissions to Sónar’s Open Call, this space will showcase exceptional innovations in technology, design, and radical thought, establishing itself as an international reference in creativity and innovation.

New Communities programme: Sónar+D will invite active participation, offering several hours of its programme to leading communities in creativity, science, marketing, and technology. This new initiative will bring together diverse creative and technological communities that are driving change in their respective fields, with a participatory program to be announced in the coming weeks.
 
And Many More Activities: Sónar Week will extend from Tuesday, June 10, to Sunday, June 15, transforming Barcelona into the world capital of music, innovation, and creativity, in collaboration with top-tier cultural and musical institutions in the city. The activities will kick off on Tuesday with the 3rd edition of +RAIN Film Festival, the AI-generated film festival co-organized by Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and Sónar. Additionally, this 32nd edition of Sónar will be inaugurated with a special concert on Thursday, June 12, at the Palau de la Música Catalana, featuring a repertoire of works by Steve Reich and the award-winning composer Raquel García-Tomás. Soon, the artistic proposal for this year’s SonarMies cycle at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion will also be announced, along with new collaborations with Foto Colectània and the Fundació Miró.

Tickets and information

More information and tickets for Sónar 2025 available at sonar.es.

To access all activities and spaces of Sónar+D 2025—including exclusive morning sessions on Thursday and Friday, as well as Lounge+D—it is necessary to acquire a SonarPass+D or a Sónar by Day Pass.

Institutions, Collaborators and Sponsors

Sónar 2025 is an initiative by Advanced Music, in collaboration with the Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the Ajuntament de Barcelona, with support from the Ministerio de Cultura, the Ajuntament de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, the S+T+ARTS initiative of the European Commission, and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AC/E).

The collaborating entities of Sónar 2025 include TIMES (The Independent Movement for Electronic Scenes), Boiler Room, Printworks, Ableton, New Art Foundation, Tabakalera, Fundación Foto Colectania, Fundació Miró, The Social Hub, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, La Salle-URL, Arts Korea Lab, Palau de la Música Catalana, and the Fundación Mies van der Rohe.

Sónar 2025 counts with Estrella Damm as a main sponsor and is supported by LACOSTE, Nissan, SEIDOR, Von Dutch Loves, Johnnie Walker, José Cuervo, OCB, Coca-Cola, ME by Meliá, AlphaTheta, and Repsol. Tickets available at DICE. Sónar 2025 also counts with the collaboration of Deleito.