Text by CLOT Magazine
A new edition of the MIRA digital arts festival is taking place this week, starting today with the inaugural performance, to then run from the 9th until the 11th of November 2017. The Barcelona festival, which began in 2011, aims to provide a platform for experimental electronic live acts and visual artists with akin creative universes while bridging new ways of combining the two art forms.
Focusing on digital culture and the most innovative technological trends, the festival takes the form of both classic and full-dome audiovisual shows, art installations, 3D sound shows, talks and workshops, providing a common ground for showcasing, communicating and educating.
For this edition, director Oriol Pastor and his team have brought about a programme that balances international and national artists. GAS (Wolfgang Voigt) is opening the festival today. The acclaimed German producer is presenting his new Audiovisual (AV) show and album, an oneiric naturalistic Odyssey that shouldn’t be missed.
The festival has a stronghold in its graphic image, this year inspired by a corny spirituality hinting to those enlightened states of consciousness reached by the exposure to digital art and electronic music. Location is another of their substantial assets.
The venue, Fabra i Coats, is an old textile factory located in the northeastern part of the city, in the Sant Andreu district and a perfect industrial set-up for this kind of event. This year the festival is expanding with an extra space in the venue. This new area will host a multidimensional 3D Sound room where the audience will be able to see acts like the local Ferenc (active again after a long hiatus), Vril and Voiski.
The programme also includes installations, such as the one by domestic data streamers (who will also be giving a talk on Thursday), performances and AV shows, including Mike Paradina’s uZik, who comes with a new AV show by Florence To. Powell will also present a new AV show and new music productions. With a new album under his arm, James Holden will be coming along with a live band, including French electronics enfant terrible Etienne Jaumet.
Onionlabs studio will provide a set of projected visuals added to reactive lasers to the DJ Set of Tzusing and Visible Cloaks, the American duo with their eye-popping performance and AV show by Brenna Murphy.
Adult Swim, the North-American television network behind the demented SciFi cartoon Rick and Morty and many innovative shows are expanding diverse formats and genres within comedy. With ‘Six minutes of your life that you will never get back’, a visual piece that will be projected in the 360º Dome, they will showcase an extension of their extravagant universe.
