Sónar festival to take over Barcelona City Council with audio-visual installation

There is exactly a week to go until the highly-anticipated electronic music festival Sónar officially drops its first beat. But the festivities will begin a bit earlier this year, and at a completely new location for the annual event.

For the first time ever, Sónar will take over the interior courtyard of Barcelona City Council with the premiere of the audio-visual installation “Chiasm”.

Unlike the main festival event, access will be free to the work of artist, composer, and sound researcher Edwin van der Heide. Using a fine layer of smoke and multiple lasers, the artist will create surfaces and projected forms for visitors to immerse themselves in.

Exploratory spirit

According to Sónar’s founder and co-director, Ricard Robles, this year’s edition aims to be a “festive” celebration with an exploratory spirit.

Sónar 2018 has a budget of 9.2 million euros, and a programme made up of 150 artists and 230 activities.

Some of the big international names on this year’s line-up include the Gorillaz, Thom Yorke, LCD Soundsystem, and Sónar regular Richie Hawtin. Organizers expect a “similar” number of attendees to last year, which attracted 124,000 people from all over the world. The festival runs until June 16. This year’s event is its 25^th anniversary.