Afrofuturism to Take Center Stage At Immersive Audiovisual Showcase, Cube Fest
If you've ever wanted to travel through space and time, look no further than Virginia Tech's upcoming Cube Fest 2021.
Featuring multisensory art by a cohort of undergraduate and graduate students, the three-day "Sound of Space: An Interactive Afrofuturist Experience" will bring together artists, researchers, industry professionals, and electronic music in order to encourage innovation.
Open for free to the public from August 20-22, the in-person exhibit was orchestrated to stimulate the mind with interactive sonic, visual, tactile and olfactory elements. Its venue, a mind-bending installation called "The Cube," was specially designed for immersive environments like Cube Fest. It comes outfitted with 140 high-density loudspeakers that make sound outputs more spatially rich and complex.
Cube Fest was built around a central theme of Afrofuturism, a cultural framework that most centrally speculates the Black experience of future generations. Often pulling from elements of science fiction, history and fantasy, modern embodiments of the philosophy include the Marvel film Black Panther, HBO's Lovecraft Country, and the music of Janelle Monáe.