Sound Scene - Failed Future Bodies
May 06, 2026
2026 Featured Artists and Works
Failed Future Bodies is a live endurance performance in which two motion-captured performers engage in ongoing weight-sharing exercises. Positioned back-to-back, they attempt to sustain a posture that imitates sitting in a chair. This act appears simple, but becomes increasingly difficult when the body itself must form the “chair.” Their pose repeatedly collapses under fatigue. Each performer holds a harmonica in their mouth, so their strained breath, slipping balance, and moments of physical exhaustion translate directly into sound. The accumulating tones form an evolving looping soundscape that grows heavier and more erratic as the performance progresses.
Behind the performers, a projected digital environment translates their movements into live avatars. These digital doubles attempt to mirror the postures, but like the performers, they slip, distort, and glitch. The work incorporates motifs of environmental breakdown and the Monobloc chair as an artifact of plastic futurity. Through repetition, collapse, and endurance, the performance reflects humanity’s attempt to stabilize itself amid ecological and digital precarity, asking what humanness remains when only data and plastic endure.
The performance is 30 minutes long. Throughout the performance, thirty 3D-printed ocarinas are offered to audiences as an invitation to contribute their own breath to the evolving soundscape.
Partially funded by an ArtsAmp Faculty Impact Grant. Motion capture system support provided by the Immersive Media Design (IMD) program.
Performance by Wednesday Kim (MFA ’27) and Dan Ortiz Leizman (Lecturer, MFA ’24)
Technical Advisor: Ian E. McDermott (MFA ’28, Immersive Media Technician for the IMD program)
Dramaturg:Dr. Katherine Guinness (Assistant Professor, UMD Department of Art)