The dark side of artificial intelligence appears at Sónar+D

“I think no one expected the arrival of artificial intelligence.” The phrase is not from an ordinary citizen surprised by the dizzying advances of the last two years, but from Antònia Folguera, curator of Sónar+D, the great science meeting , art and technology of the Sonar festival that returns from today until Saturday in the pavilions of Plaza Espanya. A meeting in which AI has been present for many years “Since 2015 there has been a lot of talk about two technologies in the environment. of art and creative technologies. One was AI, and the other was virtual or augmented reality… and I would have put more possibilities in virtual reality. And when they talked about the next revolution on the Internet, it seemed that the technologies of the Internet. blockchain They would represent a very rapid revolution. But no one expected that AI would arrive in this way and that its use would be as easy as asking it questions in human language.”

A surprise that, Folguera admits, has caused the new edition of Sónar+D to be filled with AI, especially its dark side, but also its brighter side, the fascinating changes it will bring to the world of music.

“Three activities address the dark side: the lectures by Sasha Costanza-Chock, researcher, shouting No to AI for genocide! Algorithmic necropolitics during the end of the Empirethat of Tim Morgan, who asks an AI about the future of art, and that of Joanne McNeil, who explains technology not from the point of view of big tech but from the people who have built the network training these technologies in recent years. And the inaugural conference is directly titled Creating panic? in which people from the scientific, academic and journalistic fields will talk about AI, people who also have an artistic background like Manolo Martínez, professor of Philosophy at the UB and who was 50% of Astrud. Eduard Alarcón, moderator, also played bass in Astrud in a previous life and today is a professor at the UPC specialized in quantum computing and AI. And there will be Marta Peirano, who has addressed surveillance capitalism,” says Folguera.

But they will also review the positive aspects through the AI ​​& Music Festival, an initiative of the European Commission which, it explains, has been organizing Sónar+D since this year and for three years and in which through performances, talks, workshops and masterclasses They will observe the advances in the relationship between artificial intelligence and music. What instruments and technologies appear, how artists use them and transform technology in their own way. What kind of sounds, structures, even ways of dancing will emerge. And in collaboration with the UPF they also organize the +Rain Film Festival, which addresses cinema from the point of view of those who explain the stories, how they take AI and apply it to the narrative.

Another of the topics they wanted to address, says Folguera, because many creators are doing it, are digital identities, virtual selves. “We have many performances in this sense, such as the Team Rolfes collective, a crazy augmented virtual reality opera, or the Asiandopeboys performance, six hours, a ritual that mixes dancers, musicians, performers and exploration of identity. It is important to have so many shows in which technology is key, but also the body, dance, performance, music and theater, where Team Rolfes, Asiandopeboys or Kianí del Valle would be. Risky shows that push the boundaries and into the future: at electronic music festivals we will surely see shows that until now were not normal, it will not be a typical concert with its visuals to the rhythm of the music. “All of this points to a very exciting future.”

The gray zone of the ocean comes to life in the Mies van der Rohe pavilion

The Mies van der Rohe pavilion has been taken into the depths of the ocean for Sónar+D. And for AI. The oceanographer Joan Llort, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, artfully discloses his research area, the mesopelagic, one of the layers of the ocean where very little light enters, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep. There are no algae, photosynthesis cannot be carried out, but there is another type of life that is essential for marine ecosystems and as a climate regulator because they capture CO2. The Entangled Others Studio and sound artist Daphne Xanthopoulou have transformed their data into images in Liquid Strataan LED screen in the pool of the Mies van der Rohe pavilion.