Disobey the apocalypse 3. Disobey

Third session of the Escola de pensament that seeks to combat the apocalyptic narrative. Moderated by Marina Garcés and Albert Lladó, we face the concept of disobey Maria Arnal and José Luis de Vicente.

Maria Arnal is one of the most recognized and groundbreaking voices in the contemporary music scene. Based in Barcelona, she combines her creative side of songs that mix pop, electronic and traditional polyphonic music with projects that experiment with sound, technology and art. She has performed in some of the most iconic festivals, such as the Sónar Festival, where she presented the show Hipertutopia with the youth choir of women of the Orfeó Català, and in recognized international stages, such as the TED Talks event in Vancouver 2023, among others. As a composer, she has participated in projects such as the sound piece AIR, for the Venice Architecture Biennal 2021, and SIRENA, for the Torre Glòries 2022 Hyperviewpoint: a generative choral piece that reacts in real time with the big data of Barcelona. Both pieces have counted with producer John Talabot. Together with the curator José Luis de Vicente, she curated the sound essay Cada Capa de l'Atmosfera (CCCB 2022), which connected sonic awareness with the climate emergency, and which has been nominated for two ONDAS awards. Currently, he investigates the possibilities of synthetic voice models generated with artificial intelligences, in a project in collaboration with the National Supercomputing Centre, which will be presented in October 2023 at the CCCB, at the same time that he composes his next album, the first solo long-lasting.

José Luis de Vicente is a cultural researcher and curator. His work explores topics such as computing policies and digital aesthetics, ecology and relationships between species. Since 2023 he is director of Disseny Hub Barcelona.
He has been founder and artistic director of Sónar +D, the arts and thought program of the Sónar festival, and has curated festivals such as LlumBCN, Model and Tentacular. His exhibitions, which include titles such as Atmospheric Memory, Big Bang Data, After the End of the World or Radical Curiosity: in the Orbit of Buckminster Fuller have been seen in museums and cultural centers in Spain, Argentina, United States, United Kingdom, Singapore or Australia, among other countries.
Since 2021 he collaborates regularly with singer and artist María Arnal. Together they have developed projects such as the artistic direction of CLAMOR, the second album by Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés, the generative sound installation Sirena for the Mirador Torre Glòries in Barcelona, the performative lectures Mil Sibilas and Yo Coro, and Cada Capa de L'Atmosfera, a sound essay in the form of a series of podcasts on sound in the planetary crisis for the CCCB, which won two nominations for the ONDAS awards.


Kidnapped by the stories that only know how to announce the end of the world, the idea of the future has been collapsed by a present that only knows how to relate to it from despondency, discouragement or, even worse, indifference. Joy, we know, is still a disobedient act and, once the traps of an empty happiness have been detected, the ability to play continues to be an incorruptible tool of creation and criticism, of the scene and of thought. The Escola de pensament invites us, then, to wake up in the links from the gesture and the word, as spaces of commitment and attempt.