As part of the European XR Cultural Network program supported by Unframed Collection and {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES]a professional delegation was organized in Barcelona in February 2024 to meet the Catalan creative ecosystem. The delegation had the opportunity to visit and meet numerous creative studios, events and cultural venues that demonstrate the vitality of this territory in terms of digital creativity. Catalan Arts, an institute attached to the Catalan Ministry of Culture, was particularly helpful in organizing this delegation, and we’d like to thank them for their support. This article looks back on these discoveries and offers an analysis of how this region has been involved in digital cultural innovation for many years.
Preamble: Catalonia, a fertile territory for innovation and cultural tourism
In terms of innovation, Barcelona has for many years been developing an active territorial marketing policy to attract innovative players. This policy is reflected, in particular, in the hosting of particularly innovative events such as the Mobile World Congress andIntegrated Systems Europe (one of Europe’s largest events dedicated to the audiovisual sector, with over 90,000 participants each year). As flagship events for the region, they also encourage the establishment and development of numerous entrepreneurial players. Barcelona is home to over 2,285 start-ups. Many of these are involved in the development of innovative projects in the telecoms, audiovisual and video games sectors.
Barcelona’s economic fabric is also supported by numerous universities and research laboratories. Among the latter, universities and laboratories dedicated to digital creation have developed in recent years. This is the case, for example, of theInteractive Arts and Science Laobratory (IASLAB), dedicated to art and digital technology, which recently took up residence on the LaSalle campus, which we had the opportunity to visit. The first laboratory in Spain dedicated to digital arts and technological research, it is one of the first in Europe to be located on a university campus. In addition to research, the laboratory offers a range of training courses, including a master’s degree in digital creativity. This course offers students real support in their digital projects from professionals, providing them with cutting-edge technological tools to encourage their creativity: creation studios, acoustic chambers, mixing rooms, experimentation areas and an immersive room. The creation of IASLAB represents an investment of 6 million euros, co-financed by European funds allocated by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Such a training facility demonstrates the Catalan government’s determination to invest heavily in cultural innovation in the region. However, this overview would not be complete without mentioning the central role played by Catalan Arts in the development and promotion of this creative fabric. The brainchild of theInstituto Catalán de las Empresas Culturales (ICEC), this initiative aims to support and promote Catalan cultural enterprises on an international scale, facilitating their participation in markets, festivals and other professional events. Resources and services to help professionals develop their projects are also offered by Catalan Arts, with plans to create, by 2027, a venue dedicated to cultural innovation: the Foneria. Located in the historic building of the former Royal Cannon Foundry, at the end of Barcelona’s Rambla, the Foneria will centralize these various projects, offering incubation, work, residency and exhibition spaces. The Foneria project is thus part of the Digital Culture 2026 plan, which aims to provide spaces for digital creation, democratize digital art through exhibitions and establish an international center to showcase Catalan talent internationally.
With more than 12 million tourists a year(13.5% of Barcelona’s GDP), Barcelona is keen to expand its cultural offering, with a number of projects supported by cultural venues and events that regularly innovate with the support of numerous creative studios and visual artists based in Barcelona.
Creative studios at the cutting edge of innovation
The February delegation was an opportunity to meet over twenty studios and artists whose dynamism and creativity made them particularly interesting.
UNIVRse, at the heart of collective virtual reality
Following in the footsteps of Excurio / Emissive in France, UniVrRse has developed solutions for creating free, collective virtual reality experiences. These solutions are offered in a variety of fields, from sports(FCB Virtual Dream with FC Barcelona) to cultural experiences linked to cinema (with Titanic), painting (with Dali Cybernetics) or history (with the last days of Pompeii).
In addition to these experiments, UniVRse also works in close collaboration with various venues to offer innovative experiences, such as Paulo Mauja (an interpretation center dedicated to Catalan culture in Barcelona) and the IDEAL digital art center. For some time now, UniVRse has also been collaborating with the Catalan Ministry of Education on a particularly innovative educational project (see below).
Finally, UniVRse makes its solutions available to numerous other creative studios to share their technologies and expertise. Collaborations have been carried out with Blit, a Barcelona-based creative studio, jointly developing the FC Barcelona project, FCB Virtual Dream, or the Dali artist experiment, Dali Cybernetics . Similar collaborations have also been carried out with Layers of reality.
Layers of reality: the creation of immersive environments and distribution
Visits to two of Layers of reality‘s facilities, IDEAL and Alpha5 (an immersive venue dedicated to sports), provided an opportunity to exchange views with the studio’s teams and gain an insight into its wide range of skills and expertise. In addition to these 2 locations, Layers of reality operates two other centers in Madrid and Valencia.
As a result, Layers of Reality manages the worldwide distribution of the immersive exhibitions they produce for these venues. Numerous productions have been added to their catalog, including Frida Kahlo: The Life of a Myth in Singapore, Tutankamon, the immersive experience (over 1.2 million visitors worldwide), Dali and Jules Vernes.
In addition to this catalog, Layers of reality also helps create customized experiences, such as an immersive wine tasting for the Celler Perelada winery in Catalonia, retracing the 100-year history of the winery and the brand.
The February delegation was also an opportunity to meet a number of particularly talented studios and artists at the crossroads of digital and immersive creativity, music and live performance.
Creatives at the crossroads of live arts, music and visual/digital arts
Among these, the list would be too long, but other articles or events will provide an opportunity to return to these talented artists and designers such as Desilence, Hand Coded, Xavier Bové, Hamill Industries, Sinoca or Brooder Lab, etc.
To illustrate this hybridity, Playmodes has, for example, developed a beautiful immersive performance project FORMS – String Quartet, with a string quartet at Barcelona’s CosmoCaixa in April 2021.
Creative studios are getting in on the act, but they’re not the only ones: cultural venues and events are increasingly integrating into this ecosystem to disseminate immersive experiences or digital artworks.
A variety of venues and events for the general public dedicated to the dissemination of digital artworks and immersive experiences
Cultural venues that embrace the digital boom
In Catalonia, a number of cultural venues are increasingly developing their digital cultural offerings. This is the case of the Palau Moja, for example. Once an emblematic 18th-century neoclassical palace, the Palau Moja now serves as a center for the interpretation of Catalan heritage. It houses the Generalitat de Catalunya’s Department of Cultural Heritage. On the first floor, a free exhibition space called Espai Moja was inaugurated in December 2024. It offers an immersive experience of Catalan heritage, using virtual reality technologies and interactive systems. Visitors can, for example, travel back in time to discover historical periods in Catalonia, meet historical figures via holograms and learn to prepare typical dishes virtually. All these experiences are made possible thanks to a wristband supplied at the start of the tour, which allows you to track the experiences you’ve completed, the time taken and your score, by providing your name and e-mail address.
In a more entertaining vein, White Rabbit – The Off-Museum of Barcelona also explores Catalan culture, in a more interactive and entertainment-related form, through 10 themed rooms, such as the Esclat room, which highlights Barcelona’s architectural elements using artificial intelligence.
These new experimental sites offer visitors and residents an immersive experience of Catalonia’s history and culture, showcasing it through digital and interactive means.
Last but not least, the CosmoCaixa cultural center in Barcelona, at the crossroads of science and life, has also built its visitor trail around immersion. Visitors are immersed in a 1,000m2 reconstruction of the Amazon rainforest, recreating the current ecosystem. The site also features a planetarium, in the form of a 14-meter-diameter dome equipped with 3D technology. In addition to the Barcelona venue, the Caixa Forum is increasingly investing in immersive experiences for distribution throughout its network. Starting in 2025, the Root for Naturea project by OASIS Immersion and National Geographic, will be broadcast in the Foundation’s cultural centers in Madrid and Barcelona.
Outside the walls, or rather on the walls, Barcelona’s architecture is also showcased through videomapping, such as the Casa Batllo dating from 1877 and renovated by Gaudi between 1904 and 1906. In 2025, Casa Batllo hosted the work Arborescent by Italian artist Quayola, using the house’s famous façade as a tribute to nature.
The experiential richness of Barcelona’s digital art centers
In addition to cultural venues, the development of digital art centers in Barcelona is taking shape, and several venues are becoming a benchmark in the field.
During the delegation, four centers and galleries were discovered. First of all, as mentioned above, the IDEAL center run by Layers of reality takes the form of a multi-part itinerary. This is the case, for example, of the Jules Verne 200 experience, spread over an area of 1,000m2, offering the discovery of physical objects, VR experiences (seated and wandering) and immersive projections.
Other IDEAL evening programs include KABARETT FLEDERMAUSa reinvention of Viennese cabaret through art, music, technology and science. An example of the ability of these centers to offer multi-programming to meet the needs of a wide range of audiences and uses.
Other approaches linked to entertainment and sport have been developed by Layers of Reality, such as Alpha5XR. A former basement sports hall was transformed into an immersive, experiential venue.
To round off this panorama in terms of venues: an art gallery to showcase the artistic creativity of numerous contemporary artists, the Load gallery. Opened by French artist Alex Simorré in 2023, the gallery is equipped with nine screens, a veritable experimental ground for artists.
This territory of experimentation is also supported by numerous public events dedicated to electronic music and the digital arts.
Public events at the cutting edge of digital creativity
The MIRA art festival is a fine example of this type of event. Dedicated to digital arts and contemporary music, the festival has been held in Barcelona since 2011. Its eclectic program includes audiovisual concerts, immersive 360° projections, interactive installations, live performances and conferences. The festival’s mission is to strengthen links between collectives, associations and artists working in the field of digital arts and technologies.
The Sónar music festival is another major event dedicated to electronic music, innovation and digital culture. It is at the crossroads of music by DJ artists and videomapping. The video of the 2024 edition is a good illustration.
Latest example: Llum BCN. Llum is a city-wide cultural and creative event. In particular, it supports experimentation and innovation by students from Barcelona’s art, design, lighting and architecture schools. These students contribute to the event with unique light installations. This year, seventeen schools will take part in the festival. This decision to involve all the players in the industry encourages exchanges, encounters and collaborations.
The whole city is involved in the development of digital art in Catalonia. To round off this panorama, a final example is provided by Catalonia’s national education system.
New forms of digital experience dedicated to education
In conjunction with the French Ministry of Education, UniVRse, Layers of reality and Magma Cultura (for the operation), Catalan Arts has supported the development of an educational and pedagogical project to enable local schoolchildren to discover Catalan heritage.
This 8 million euro project has created a nomadic solution that enables an immersive room to be set up in 4 hours in the gymnasiums of Catalan schools. Once set up, the room can accommodate 15 children equipped with VR headsets for a 50-minute collective VR experience, exploring the history of Catalonia (Neolithic, Roman and Moorish). Els ulls de la història is one such experience.
After completing the experiment, the students are invited to take part in workshops on the subjects they have seen. The educational and pedagogical approach remains to be evaluated, both in terms of design and use, and how it can be improved. The aim of this itinerant initiative is to have the project tested by 39,000 students by 2025.
In conclusion, Catalonia boasts a dynamic and constantly evolving ecosystem in the field of digital and immersive experiences. Thanks to its cutting-edge research centers, it fosters innovation and training in these strategic subjects. Its cultural fabric is becoming increasingly digitalized, supported by emblematic venues and an ecosystem of renowned creative studios. In addition, an ambitious events policy, with international trade shows such as Mobile World Congress and ISE, reinforces its appeal and influence. Digital culture, particularly around music and electro, is rooted in dynamic creative districts. Finally, the financial support of the autonomous provinces, largely backed by Europe, and the development of land for immersive uses, confirm the economic wealth and innovative momentum of this region. Inspiring in all these respects, Catalonia remains a European region to watch!
Charlotte BAUGE and Antoine ROLAND
