SONICA 2024: Glocalisation
In 2024, SONICA returns with an electrifying programme which represents a continuation of last year’s theme ‘Translocal Underground’, focusing on hyper specific sounds and sonic cultures from different corners of the world.
With the theme of ‘Glocalisation’, we shed light on the tensions between the unrelenting, merciless forces of globalisation and local identities, beliefs, and traditions. The term, coined by Japanese economists to explain Japanese global marketing strategies and popularised by the sociologist Roland Robertson, is a linguistic hybrid between globalisation and localisation. It describes the simultaneous occurrence of both universalising and particularising tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems as well as culture.
Even though it is impossible to escape global movements and trends in this overconnected world, we believe specific artistic communities with a strong local character are the basis for novel creativity. In order to escape the flattening and standardisation of electronic, and experimental music expressions, it is essential that we maintain vital cultural hubs throughout the world. It is therefore urgent to look for new models that seek to empower local creative hubs and communities. We must dare to imagine more independent and self-sustaining modes of production that transcend established local, European, and international concepts of networking, collaboration, exchange, funding, cultural policies, trends, and the demands of the music market and scene(s). How can we transform these, making them more accessible and inclusive. Can the festival as a specific form become such a space?