Mobile Week Barcelona Exceeds Expectations with more than 2,000 visitors

• With the first Mobile Week Barcelona, the impact of digital transformation has been brought to the city’s 10 districts with the latest cultural, artistic and technological trends
• There are still five more routes this weekend through the city’s districts, and the 10 artistic creations will continue to be open to the public

February 24, 2017

Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) is concluding its first annual Mobile Week Barcelona, an event designed to generate public debate about mobile technology. The event concludes this Sunday, 26 February. The project was launched on 20 February. Mobile Week Barcelona exceeds expectations with more than 2,000 visitors who gathered to see proposals distributed throughout Barcelona’s 10 districts.

Mobile Week Barcelona has put together a programme of 10 dialogues, 10 routes and 10 innovative artistic creations in more than 60 cultural and scientific facilities, research and innovation centres, and universities. The event has involved more than 60 speakers, numerous collaborators, and 10 young artists who have conveyed with their works the increasingly more obvious connection between art and the digital world.

This weekend, it will still be possible to attend the remaining activities of Mobile Week Barcelona. There will be five routes through the districts of Gràcia, Sant Andreu, Les Corts, L’Eixample and Horta-Guinardó that will showcase the creative environment, the digital culture and the ideas of each district. The 10 artistic creations will continue to be open to the public until Sunday, 26 February, at their respective locations. 

The Dialogues

In addition, 10 dialogues were organized in the landmark buildings of each district, such as the Disseny Hub, MACBA or the Parc Tecnològic de Nou Barris. More than 60 speakers at these locations, including journalists, researchers, the heads of renowned institutions, deans, professors and philosophers, have addressed the social, cultural and economic impact of digital transformation.

Among the speakers participating in the first Mobile Week Barcelona were Marc Vidal, a digital transformation consultant, Enric Puig, professor of philosophy at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), and Josep Ramoneda, a journalist, philosopher and writer. One of the debates that drew the largest audiences was held on 20 February and titled “The Fourth Industrial Revolution – a New Economy,” and dealt with the digital transformation process. Participants included Aleix Valls, CEO of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Luis Iván Cuende, cofounder and CEO of Unpatent, and Marc Vidal. 

The Artistic Creations

The 10 works exhibited throughout the city represented various artistic fields, such as video art, cinema, painting, sculpture, music, photography and urban art. The exhibition of these works facilitated an experiment with artistic creation as a vehicle to convey the latest advances in technology and digitalisation.

Works such as Random Happiness transformed the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) into a display of innovation and technology. Along these lines, the paintings of Xavi Julià, which depict the Plaça Catalunya full of mobile devices, allow us to reflect on our daily behaviour and our relationship to technology. 

The Inspirational Routes

To rediscover the more innovative side of Barcelona, the MWCapital initiative set up routes through the most unique spaces of each district. The last five routes will be conducted this weekend, thus broadening their impact and public participation on one of the more well received events of the programme.

One of these routes was conducted through the district of Ciutat Vella on 20 February. It started at the Mobile World Centre, where participants could see the city’s first Virtual Escape Room free of charge and visit an exhibit titled “A MOBILE STORY.”

Afterwards, the group moved to the MACBA, where curator Teresa Grandas, presented the exhibit Gelatina Dura. The route ended at the Opera Samfaina, where the potential of the location for a new gastronomic experience was addressed