The first drone show in the Barcelona sky, a ‘map‘ in the modernist enclosure of Saint Paul, 13′performances‘, exhibitions with more than 80 works, immersive installationsinteractive pieces, sound art, animations, 16 round tables, 13 workshops, 40 artist talks, 140 expert presentations… is the overwhelming offer of activitiesmost of them open to citizens, who from June 10 to 16 will display the 27th edition of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA)the largest art festival linked to technology and science ever held in Spain and which will turn “Barcelona in the world capital of the electronic arts Olympics”, predicts its director, Pau Alsinaa professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), who promotes the congress.
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Under these lines we select five of the most outstanding activities of the Barcelona edition of a contest that since 1988 travels around the world and returns to Europe after a decade without being held on the continent. It will start this week with the involvement of some 50 entities, with a very social and public nature and a small academic part restricted to specialists from more than 40 countries.
Drone dance over the beach
In a unique aerial dance of technology, lights and electronic music, a set of synchronized drones will invade the sky of Somorrostro beach on the night of June 15 (10:30 p.m.). A show by Flock Drone Art Barcelona that will serve as the closing ceremony for ISEA.
‘Mapping’ and digital art in the Sant Pau modernist venue
The ‘mapping’ ‘Cité Mémoire’ by Canadian artists Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon together with Michel Marc Bouchard promises, a screening at the Sant Pau modernist venue that on June 14, 15 and 16 will pay homage to Quebec, a Canadian city that virtually hosted the previous edition of ISEA and guest of honor.
On this same stage, from June 9 to 30, the ‘Possible’ exhibition will bring together important works of digital art, including ‘Sightseeing’, by Thierry Fournier, a camera that reflects on its exhaustion; the narcissistic experience between waves offered by the digital mirror ‘Liquid Views’, by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strausson; and the trip to quantum chaos invited by ‘Quantum Chaos set’, by Paul Thomas.
Dialogue between machines at the CCCB
‘DïaloG’, a large interactive installation by Refik Anadol (author of the NFT of Casa Batlló, auctioned for 1.3 million euros) and Maurice Benayou will shine in the CCCB’s Plaça Joan Coromines, from June 11 to 18, which explores the issues of immigration and alterity. He does it with two large screens, which, like works of art, dialogue with each other in an environment that is foreign to them. With the participation of the public, they must adapt their language to build mutual understanding beyond differences.
The CCCB will also host workshops (June 11 and 12) and ‘performances’ (13 to 15) with musical and audiovisual proposals of ‘live coding’ or based on artificial intelligence algorithms.
Irruption in the Santa Mònica
ISEA’s main exhibition, ‘La irrupción’, will be at the Santa Mònica from June 9 to August 21. There will be 32 international and local artistic proposals, from, among others, Robertina Šebjanič, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Eric Berger, Joan Soler-Adillon or Andy Gracie. The exhibition, curated by Marta Gracia, Jara Rocha and the center’s director, Enric Puig Punyet, delves into the current ecological, climatic and social crisis.
Sounds and artificial intelligence
On June 15, at the Parc de Recerca Biomèdica in Barcelona, the concert ‘Sonidos en causa’, by the Orquesta del Caos, one of whose members is Josep Manuel Berenguer, can be followed. The project records the sound heritage of Latin American cultures with pieces chosen by an artificial intelligence and proposed by an installation of eight loudspeakers.
A selection of the program in the rest of Catalonia:
–Reus: electronic art exhibition ‘Origins’, from La Beep Collection
–Vic: talk by digital artist Anna Carreras
–Mataro: Concert of a cyborg family, by Moon Ribas and Quim Girón at Mataró Art Contemporani, June 10
–Berga: installation KONVENT, by Sasha Kleinplatz, with a dancer in a greenhouse sweater, June 11
–Balaguer (Lleida): PLANTA, from the Fundació Sorigué, will host the installation ‘Call out’, by Abel Korinsky and Orhan Kavrakogl, June 11 and 12
–L’Hospitalet de Llobregat: exhibition in Tecla Sala ‘The middays of Afeli’
Visual arts facilities, design schools, museums, art centres, scientific and technological institutes and entities such as the Hub of Art, Science and Technology (Hac Te), the NewArtFoundation, the Institut Ramon Llull, the city council participate in the ISEA. and the Generalitat.