Cube Fest 2026 transforms stories into immersive listening experiences

What does a conversation with a 3D printer sound like? What sounds emerge from a South African watering hole at dusk, a Buddhist mountain monastery, or the room where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and debated?

Audiences can discover these things and more during Cube Fest 2026, “Spoken Words,” a free, three-day festival of performances, installations, and curated listening experiences created by innovative electronic music composers who are forging rich connections among poetry, sound, and human expression. From intensely musical to delicately digital, Cube Fest’s international creators speak with dramatic originality. 

Happening Aug. 21-23 in the Cube and other spaces in the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, the biennial festival welcomes artists from around the world who use immersive spatial audio to transform conversations, poetry, field recordings, historical spaces, and everyday sounds into unforgettable listening experiences. This year's theme explores the many ways stories are carried through sound, from spoken language and poetry to environmental recordings and imagined conversations.

The festival also offers audiences a chance to experience the Cube, one of only a handful of immersive spatial audio environments of its kind. Here, artists can use sound as a creative medium, surrounding audiences with music, voices, and environmental recordings that move throughout the room.

Cube Fest 2026 is sponsored by the Center for the Arts; Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology; and Center for Humanities.

Cube Fest 2026 schedule

Friday, Aug. 21

10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Tesseract Jukebox

Sandbox

This ongoing intimate installation in the Sandbox plays a loop of curated spatialized audio compositions (same program on Friday and Saturday). Walk in and out freely, or choose a specific piece and sit to listen.

5 p.m.

Studio Experiences I

Perform Studio

Explore programs of curated works without live performers in an intimate listening environment in Perform Studio. 

7 p.m.

Sonic Performances I

Cube, registration required

These programs of curated works involve live performances in the Cube.

9 p.m.

Playback Experiences I

Cube, registration required

Experience programs of curated works in the Cube without live performers. Enjoy from seating or a beanbag chair on the floor.

Saturday, Aug. 22

10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Tesseract Jukebox

Sandbox

This ongoing intimate installation in the Sandbox plays a loop of curated spatialized audio compositions (same program on Friday and Saturday). Walk in and out freely, or choose a specific piece and sit to listen.

1 p.m.

“Earworms and Auditory Explorations”

David F. Green

Perform Studio

How do the works in Cube Fest 2026 influence thoughts about audio technology and interpretive practice? This interactive discussion highlights examples of works that push interpretive capacities through multisensory approaches to critical listening and humanistic inquiry.

5 p.m.

Studio Experiences II

Perform Studio

Explore programs of curated works without live performers in an intimate listening environment in Perform Studio. 

7 p.m.

Sonic Performances II

Cube, registration required

These programs of curated works involve live performances in the Cube.

9 p.m.

Playback Experiences II

Cube, registration required

Experience programs of curated works in the Cube without live performers. Enjoy from seating or a beanbag chair on the floor.

Sunday, Aug. 23

“The Declaration of Independence: Spatial Audio Remix”

1-2:30 p.m.

Installation (Tyechia Thompson)

2:30 p.m.

Audience Discussion (Sherri Craig)
Cube

Using the acoustics of the historic rooms where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and debated, alongside recitations performed by contributors representing a range of ages, identities, and conditions, this installation transforms Jefferson’s version into a lively chorus. Experience a tapestry of overlapping voices, revisions, echoes, and silences that make the sounds of American freedom audible. Following the installation, join an audience discussion to engage with some of the voices heard. 

3 p.m.

Master Class | “Where the Poem Lives: Spoken Word, Image, and Sound”

Brittney S. Harris

Sandbox, registration required

An immersive master class exploring spoken word poetry as an embodied practice, where language lives in the body through movement, breath, and spatial awareness. Participants are invited to experience poetry not only on the page or in the voice, but as something that moves through and lives within the body.

Open to artists, students, educators, and community members, this session welcomes all levels of experience.

7 p.m.

Playback Experiences III

Cube, registration required

Experience programs of curated works in the Cube without live performers. Enjoy from seating or a beanbag chair on the floor.

9 p.m.

“3 Feet High and Rising”

De La Soul

Spatial orchestration designed by Eric Lyon

Cube, registration required

“3 Feet High and Rising,” De La Soul’s debut album, landed in 1989 straight from Long Island (or possibly Mars, according to early conceptions of the record). The work instantiates the potentials of sampling, storytelling, and rapping with no sense of limits. This visionary 1989 record was a harbinger of future network cultures, and its conception of the total availability of anything that can be sampled remains ahead of its time in 2026.

The Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology’s website includes a more detailed schedule, including all participating artists and descriptions of their work.

All Cube Fest events are free and open to the public. Registration is required for select events, which are noted in the schedule.

Venue and parking information

Events will be held in the Center for the Arts, located at 190 Alumni Mall. Convenient parking is available in the North End Parking Garage on Turner Street and in downtown Blacksburg. Find more parking details online.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Jonathan Boulter at least 10 days prior to the event at 540-231-5300 or email jboulter@vt.edu during regular business hours.