BLACKSBURG – A celebration of spatial music, immersive experiences, and 3D audio technology, Cube Fest returns to Virginia Tech Aug. 8-11, bringing together international music and audio technology experts, computer engineers, musicians, and composers to present a series of public performances.
Presented by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology and the Moss Arts Center, the festival’s events will be held in the Moss Arts Center, located at 190 Alumni Mall.
Cube Fest features a series of concerts curated from submissions to an international call for works specifically created for high-density loudspeaker arrays. The centerpiece of the festival, the Cube is an experimental venue and living laboratory where faculty, staff, and students with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology are leading a revolution in sound with their innovative work.
Located in the Moss Arts Center, the Cube is widely accepted as one of the most technologically advanced venues for immersive experiences, attracting international attention for its technical capabilities that support a wide range of audio approaches, from data sonification to spatial sound composition.
New to the festival this year is a selection of screenings and performances that utilize the Cube’s 360-degree projection environment, the Cyclorama. This cinema-in-the-round experience invites viewers to explore new forms of narrative and multi-faceted technological experiments in a fully immersive and visually encompassing four-projection environment. These events will incorporate experimental computer animation techniques, creative coding, photogrammetry, 360-degree video, and a range of other immersive technology techniques.
In Cube Fest tradition, the festival will feature a spatialized presentation of an iconic album in its entirety. Part of the festival’s “Listening Lounge” series, hear the Beatles’ “White Album” spatialized over the Cube’s 140-channel spatial audio system on Sunday, Aug. 11, at 9 p.m.
Other Cube Fest events include live performances from artists who will present multichannel music compositions that utilize data to enhance the experience, along with live and fixed media pieces that have been written or created in the Cube.
Family-friendly workshops will explore the basics of the Cube’s technology, including spatialized audio and immersive visual systems, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and large-format projection.
Tickets can be purchased (or reserved for free events) online; at the Moss Arts Center’s box office, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300 during box office hours.
Parking is available in the North End Parking Garage on Turner Street. Virginia Tech faculty and staff possessing a valid Virginia Tech parking permit can enter and exit the garage free of charge. Limited street parking is also available. Parking on Alumni Mall is free on weekdays after 5 p.m. and on weekends.
