On its 15th anniversary, Sonar 2008 delves into one of the most significant exhibition ventures in the festival's history. For the first time, a central theme will run through most of Sonar's exhibition areas: Cinema.

El Cine Mas Allá del Cine—Cinema Beyond Cinema—is a remarkable journey to the present and the future of cinema. But this is a journey from the frontiers of cinema, one that begins beyond cinema. Well into the 21st century, new modes production and diffusion—digital media and the internet—have already revolutionised audiovisual culture in general, and they are now starting to transform the possibilities of cinematic art in particular—from the outside. New image processing programs and popular online portals for free digital video distribution have become the new pillars of contemporary visual culture. This expanded territory is brimming over and disrupting the seventh art as we knew it.

El Cine Mas Allá del Cineturns its attention to these new areas of contemporary audiovisual production, distribution and consumption that have room for new media art to play a major role. Two exhibitions, five showcases and three audiovisual shows come together to form El Cine Mas Allá del Cine, an unprecedented adventure for the eyes of visitors. The exhibitions Future Past Cinema at SonarMatica and Luz Y Sonido at Sonarama, the various online showcases included in Digital Art a la Carte, and part of the SonarCinema and SonarExtra programs, all revolve around the ways in which new spheres of audio and video production interact with and influence cinema. And vice versa.

The construction of images based on going back and recovering different kinds of pre-cinema technologies, the use of light as a focus for the possibilities of installation art, the development of videogames as the huge new entertainment factory for the masses, the birth of live-cinema (the production of sound and visuals in real time that emerged from club culture) as a new format in cinema's near-future, and the massive influx of YouTube and GoogleVideo as the great collective, universal video library of the 21st—these are some of the thought-provoking fields that the exhibitions at Sonar 2008 deal with.

More than fifteen top international artists, thirty audiovisual directors, filmmakers like Jonathan Caouette and Bigas Lunas and arts centres like Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial are on the impressive roll-call of artists and specialists who have contributed to the exhibitions that take Cinema Beyond Cinema.

Featured Works:

Beijing Accelerator (Marnix De Nijs); Biophionitos (Paola Guimerans); Boxed-Ego (Alvaro Cassinelli); Demi-Pas (Julián Maire); FlipBook! (Juan Ospina / Fabrica); Level Head (Julian Oliver); Stage fright (Nova Jiang); Takashi's Seasons (Takashi Kawashima); We Are The Time We Are The Famous (Andy Cameron, Oriol Ferrer Mesià, David McDougall, Joel Gethin Lewis, Hansi Raber, pictured)

Animal Charm (Nelson Hendricks); Cityscapes (Michaella Grill); Donga's Monsta Circus (Ove Naxx); Drumsmemen Father's Song, Nanycal (Catchpulse); Dub Echoes (Bruno Natal); Erase Remake (Jan Machacek); Film Ist # 9 (Gustav Deutsch); fortythousand3hundred20 memories (Sue Costabile and AGF); Hazmazk (Edward Quist); Hello Again (Michaella Grill); In The Name of Kernel: Song of the Iron Bird (Joan Leandre); Kaamos Trilogy (Solu); Kristall (Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller); Kuvaputki (Edward Quist); Mosaik Mécanique (Norbert Pfaffenbichler); Muscle Spark (Maruosa); Pilgrimage from Scattered Points (Luke Fowler); Please Stand Back (Stadtmusik); Scool Oi, Zuinosin (Catchpulse); Scotch Bach, DJ Scotch Egg. (Steve Glaisher); Trans (Michaella Grill); Under the Bridge, Baiyon (Catchpulse); What the Future Sounded Like (Matthew Bate); Work, Rest & Play (Vicki Bennett)

Program information:

Sónar2008