Sonar’s first night was made up by the Pet Shop Boys, that had a reduced audience; they were in a place for about 5000 people and they were almost 250 (not enough information?). Roger Sanchez, Soul designer, Yo la Tengo and Lamb were on the line up on Friday 14th.

We interviewed music Artist Pacou from Berlin at the SONAR: Mr. Pacou: “Sonar 2002 was again expanding from last year’s numbers and size, and had some very interesting showcases. Compared to the years before the musical focus was a bit more widespread on various kinds of electronic music (not only disco/dance/techno), luckily also for the nightly events, which are one of the best points of this event. The weather was as usual in Barcelona in June exceptional good, so this could be seen as one of THE spots for meeting all kind of business partner in Europe regarding electronic music scene: artists, distributor, event organizers and so on, all of them are attracted not only by the line up of Sonar itself but the fact that virtually everyone is around.”

From the sponsors list we could mention Sony, BBC Radio 1, MTV.ES and other goverment institutions that allowed the organisers reach their goals.

Also, Brain Aided Design, an audiovisual exposition of the The Designers Republic took presence at La Capella de L`antic hospital de la Santa Creu (and old convent next to the CCCB). Full color – printed posters and a selection of videos on Ian Anderson`s work -DR- exhibit was quite succesfuly consolidate their quality thru the years of being working for electronic labels and productions. The Designers Republic was a good appetizer for music-design lovers before Sonar 2002 by night.

On Saturday Afternoon, Gel, Maudy Doctor L (French Music Office), took the scenary of SONARVILLAGE as also High Fish and Nikakoi (WMF). By night we met Jeff Mills with thousands of dancers at SONAR CLUB, Solo los solo, Dj del Costa and Carl Cox around 5.30 am.

And complex exhibitions on the MACBA under the name of Proces Sonic, Sonic Process, A New Geography of Sounds with participation from musicians and artists like Coldcut and Headspace with Gridio, Flowmotion with Ghost Dance, Mathieu Briand, David Shea with Sound Film in Eight Scenes, Doug Aitken, Mike Kelley and Scanner, Marti Guixe, Gabriel Orozco, Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber with extremely sensorial experiences that made truth all what we expect from arts reunited with electronica, or what we learned with pride to call from here ‘Advanced Music’ itself.

Sonar 2002
9th International Festival of Cutting-edge Music and Multimedia Art in Barcelona.
Date: June 13th – 15th, 2002
Place: CCCB, MACBA, Fira Monjuich etc.
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