- For the second year, Barcelona hosts its own 2,765 m² open-air space within the MWC, that recreates the city coastline inspired by the urban innovation map included in the Green Deal 2030 with a sustainable design created by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC).
- The entire space has been designed using digital manufacturing and robotic construction, integrating the most innovative software and AI, a technology that is redefining the future of architecture and shared spaces.
- The different areas of BEAT BARCELONA combine activities and networking with technological experiences and a musical offer programmed by Sónar, Cruïlla and MIRA.
- BEAT BARCELONA, promoted by Barcelona City Council, Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA, aims to visualise the city’s digital assets and bring the congress closer to the public.
February 24, 2023
For the second consecutive year, Barcelona City Council, Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA are promoting the BEAT BARCELONA space, 2,765 m² located in an outdoor area of the venue that recreates the city coastline inspired by the urban innovation map included in the Green Deal 2030. The venue, with a sustainable design developed by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), is located on the terrace of the North Access of the Grande Via 2 Fair.
The initiative aims to explain through experience, culture, creativity, architecture and gastronomy why Barcelona is unique for its technological ecosystem. BEAT Barcelona aims to consolidate itself as a proposal offered to the public of MWC Barcelona to discover, on the one hand, the attributes that the city has as a space for innovation and, on the other hand, to discover from the congress itself the experience of living in the city 365 days a year. The project, intended to be permanent, will have continuity beyond the MWC, with the aim of bringing digital experiences closer to the citizens. A project to reuse most of the sustainable materials is also planned.
A space that recreates the Barcelona coastline
The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), co-founded by Vicente Guallart and directed by Daniel Ibáñez, has led the design of a sustainable proposal, a unique space that recreates the Barcelona coastline, from Besòs to Llobregat, inspired by the urban innovation map included in the Barcelona Green Deal 2030. It also includes some of the most characteristic elements of the city, such as the three chimneys of the Besòs, the Ciutadella Park, the Montjuic mountain and Barcelona’s Harbour.
The set design represents the importance of the ecological and technological transition of cities, based on unique elements such as sustainable architecture, which guarantees a design that respects the environment, research into new materials, which allows construction with less environmental impact, or the use of 100% natural, biodegradable, recyclable and local materials, such as wood.
The entire space has been entirely designed using digital manufacturing and robotic construction, integrating the most innovative software and AI for a customised, precise and fast parametric design, a technology that is redefining the future of architecture and shared spaces.
An immersive concert
Mobile World Capital Barcelona has launched Feel the Technology, a personalised and gamified experience that showcases services based on disruptive technologies such as immersive reality, metavers and artificial intelligence, which will also be present at BEAT BARCELONA in addition to the two other spaces managed by the foundation at MWC and 4YFN.
Each part of the experience will focus on an activity in which one of the five senses predominates. BEAT BARCELONA will end this sensory route with an immersive musical experience through hearing, promoted by MWCapital and Barcelona Music Lab, together with Acciona, Eurecat and Damm in the area that emulates Barcelona’s Harbour. The project offers a musical experience using all five senses, recreating the last concert of the indie-pop band IZAL, at the Palau Sant Jordi, where visitors can experience it from the stage in an immersive way using Virtual Reality eyeglasses.
Music and digital art
As part of this space, BEAT BARCELONA offers more than just technology, with proposals where visitors can meet Herbie, an intelligent plant with whom they can interact to discover all the possibilities it can offer. They will also be able to visualise their artistic expressions in a digital gallery to the metavers and even acquire them through NFTrees to locate them by geolocation and visualise them on their mobile phone through augmented reality.
BEAT BARCELONA will also have a digital art gallery. Powered by moool, it will include emblematic pieces from prestigious and long-standing artists related to the city of Barcelona, such as Javier Mariscal, Violeta Denou or Federico Babina. Rediscovering well-known artists who have adapted to the digital era and have chosen to offer their work in new formats in order to reach a wider public and open up to the possibilities offered by new environments.
In addition, music is included through the ‘Silent DJ’ experience, using Virtual Reality to travel back in time to the 70s and transport visitors inside the legendary Maddox nightclub in Playa de Aro. The space is brought back to life thanks to dynamic lighting and animated figures dancing around the visitor. With headphones, visitors will be able to watch and enjoy live DJ sessions, which will be located in different places.
The knowledge forum
Framed within an original and natural design that recreates the Ciutadella Park, the Agora Beat is a meeting space where content and knowledge will be shared on subjects related to technology and the city, to contribute to the positioning of Barcelona as a technology hub and to share examples of best practices and ongoing projects.
It will occupy a central space and will have a full and varied daily programme led by Barcelona City Council with the presentation of proposals aimed at publicising innovative programmes and different experiences and actions being carried out in the city. Initiatives from Barcelona Activa, the International Promotion of the City, the Municipal Institute of Information Technology and B:SM, among others, will have a space.
In the adjoining areas, an exhibition space and meeting rooms have been designed to accommodate protocol visits and the specific needs of the project partners.
ANNEX. Official afterwork programme – Festivals and more
BEAT Barcelona is the official MWC and 4YFN meeting and afterwork space that starts when the congress activity ends, and it does so with an attractive musical and gastronomic proposal and a non-stop leisure space until 8pm (except Thursday, which will be until 4pm).
On 27 February Sónar will present to BEAT Barcelona two activities that are part of the Sónar Barcelona 2023 programme.
Lanav (17.30 – 18.30h)
Lanav’s proposal shakes up the Barcelona club scene. Lanav wants to contribute to this healthy and shared local scene every time he enters a DJ booth. His sessions are emotionally charged. They embrace rave-nostalgia, new club and breaks and always feature a powerful bass line.
Desert. Chaos under the sky (19.00 – 20.*00h)
Catalan duo Desert will present Chaos Under the Sky, a performance that aims to create audiovisual content with IA using the Gaugan algorithm. The show will feature dreamlike landscapes that are transformed into post-industrial allegories and visuals with a twilight touch in both content and form to create a palette of landscapes that evolve from the natural to the industrial.
The Cruïlla Festival arrives on 28 February with two proposals:
Calling soundscapes by Xavi Lloses is a new immersive sound experience format. A concert where part of the music sounds through the usual amplification systems, and another part is synchronously distributed by the spectators’ telephone devices, dividing the different voices or sound tracks, completing the soundscape and generating an immersive and unique sound experience.
“Calling soundscapes” uses the loudspeaker of our smartphone, which at its maximum volume can emit almost the same decibels as a cassette player or home stereo. Different sound tracks are spread across the terminals placing the listener in the middle of a surrounding, vibrating and moving sound experience.
By scanning a QR code projected onto the stage screen everyone can enter the experience at any time.
Xavi Lloses builds melodies on synchronous gears enveloping the listeners as if they were in the middle of insect fields or flocks of birds in constant mutation, over dynamic and suggestive rhythms.
El estafador A weekly graphic humour fanzine that with DIGITALCUAL proposes to illustrate technology with humour… with technology. At BEAT BARCELONA, El Estafador proposes the creation of a live collaborative mural. Six illustrators will draw in situ with a tablet and will be connected with six other illustrators remotely through the MIRÓ platform. The creations of all the artists will be projected onto the screen afterwards.
Taking part in person: MERCROMINAH / HELENA ANILLO / MARYLOU / IVAN BRAVO / ROGER PETRA / LA PERRA LAIKA i a distància: MARTA PIEDRA / HUMOR JODER HUMOR / LAURA ÁRBOL / LARA TRECE / LA NARANJA SOCIAL / HILDA EN LAS NUBES / SANDRA LODI / RUANGO / JOANNA POUPAKI.
MIRA offers two live audiovisual shows for the 1st of March:
RRUCCULLA (17.30 – 18.30h).
Izaskun González is a prolific producer of electronic music. Her music is a mix of genres and energetic compositions, jazz-influenced experimentation, pop-injected melodies, abstract rhythms, synthetic textures, distorted noises, and infinite layers of vivid imaginary sounds. She will perform with visuals of her own creation.
Oma Totem (19.00 – 20.00h)
Ignasi Sadurní is a musician, dj and producer from Barcelona who was a resident of Nitsa Club and is one of the local scene’s diamonds in the rough. He manages the label Invierno Discos, where he has been releasing his own musical productions. He will perform accompanied by the visuals of the duo Solo y Serpientes.
BEAT BARCELONA will have a musical agenda throughout the day, between 10am and 4pm, with a proposal curated by Plastic Barcelona, a DJ academy that has been training the best DJs in the city since 1988.
Gastronomic zone
Gastronomy is present at BEAT BARCELONA. All day long, food will be served at its two bars, with a different menu prepared with local products by Cuina Justa. The gastronomic proposal Rocambolesc and Casa Cacao will bring to the space the creativity of Germans Roca and his division of candies.
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