The Grec and Sonar festivals celebrate a joint night that will light up the Barcelona sky from the hand of Ryoji Ikeda

Sónar 2010 | 08.04.2010

In 2010, the Grec and Sonar festivals come together for a very special night, on Thursday 17th June, for which a joint production is being prepared –for the first time– that will take place in the Teatre Grec in Barcelona.

Two shows on a single night

The Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda will present two spectacles at the Teatre Grec.

The first, “spectra [barcelona]”, is a large-scale installation –located in the amphitheatre– which uses an immense white light as sculptural material. The result is an enormous column of light, visible from miles around, which will change the appearance of the city for one night and will make a strong impression on anyone who sees it.

Ikeda will also give us two performances of his audiovisual show “test pattern [live set]”, in which a programme transforms the Japanese composer's audio signal patterns into synchronised barcodes on a screen in real time. The result, which will be on display in the Teatre Grec gardens, shows intense flickering black and white images which convulse in darkness to a poweful soundtrack.

Co-produced with



Ryoji Ikeda – spectra [barcelona]
Co-produced by Grec Barcelona Festival and Forma
Production co-ordinated by Elsinor

Ryoji Ikeda – test pattern [live set]
Produced by Forma
Concept, composition: Ryoji Ikeda
Visual programming: Tomonaga Tokuyama