Miami’s FETA Water Festival Turns Drinking Water Into Art, Sound and Performance

Troy Rogers composer, sound artist, and instrument builder will present “Drip, Squeak, Gurgle” at the inaugural Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts (FETA) Water Festival in partnership with The Bridge Miami at the two-day festival beginning on Friday, March 13. (Photo courtesy of FETA)

Water holds memory – memory of both natural and ecological systems. It records our habits and redistributes their consequences. Humans are mostly water — roughly 60 percent. Water fills our cells, falls from tropical skies, and flows to South Florida’s aquifers. It is our internal and external home. Water is also playful, pleasurable, and a fundamental part of daily life, connecting the health of our environment to the health of our communities.

The inaugural Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts (FETA) Water Festival,  in partnership with The Bridge Miami, brings drinking water to the center of artistic inquiry as a collaborator. Across two days of technology-grounded performances, installations, conversations, and demonstrations, audiences are invited to hear, feel, and rethink their relationship with water.

The festival asks: How does water shape us and what is the bandwidth of the interdependent relationship we have with it?

An artphibian artist, professor of at University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, and FETA founder Juraj Kojš curates the festival specifically to raise awareness about the importance of being hydrated.

“Drinking water is a precious gift. Often, we take it for granted and even forget how vital it is to us. Noting how dehydration impacts health, sleep, and decision making, I wanted to bring attention to our need for water as one of our most basic and fundamental needs. We feel and think better when hydrated,” says Kojš.

He has invited an array of artists who treat water as collaborator, medium, and message—exploring it across cosmic, ecological, sonic, and social contexts. Audiences will think about and interact with water in novel and immersive ways. For example, in “Drip, Squeak, Gurgle,” Troy Rogers traces water’s slow accumulation on a young planet—from solitary droplets to seas, human throats, vessels, and valves—imagining existence as a brief, gurgling interval between condensation and evaporation.

Jennifer Beattie will present poetry, love songs and stories that bring us closer to the sacred waters of the river in her piece “River of Love.”

Dimitry Saïd Chamy,  a transdisciplinary artist and cultural producer will present “Underground Rainbow,” a meditative video loop that explores seeping water working its way underground and refracting and reflecting the light by which we come to see our strength. “Witch,” an electronic composition by José Hernández was built with water recordings transformed through various electronic processes and features live spoken narration. May Klug will use hydrophones to amplify water bodies and vessels, in “Ripples (Feedback System Test)” feeding them into a networked analogue delay and digital multi-effects system she has developed.

Alex Lough examines drinking water and saliva samples collected from traveling artists. Through microscopic imaging, projection, and feedback-driven synthesis, subtle particulate motion is translated into delicate, high-frequency sound—revealing the fragile life systems contained within each sip in “Every Sip, a World.”

Charles Peoples III explores resonance, spirituality, and belonging—Charles Peoples III positions the human voice as an oceanic signal searching for connection with “HumanSong: An Exploration of a Sonic Call.” And Margaret  Lancaster’s “H2ohhhh!!!” is an interactive game show that invites audiences to confront how we use, waste, and depend upon clean water. Blending performance, electronics, and humor, the work transforms environmental urgency into participatory action.

Kojš interactive installation, “Convolution Fountain,” features a custom‑built, automated, and amplified bird fountain that merges backyard ecology with responsive sound design. Live water flow is convolved in real time with recordings of birds from Kojš’s garden, creating a shimmering hybrid soundscape where avian song and liquid motion continuously shape one another.

With a flare for the multisensory and the theatrical, Kojš is hosting the first Miami Tap Water Tasting Contest, judged by water sommelier, Rodrigo Anglarill of the SIP: House of Water.

Attendees are invited to bring a sample of their own tap water to the contest. The crucial importance of water quality in beverages will be demonstrated by Todd Space of the Master Brewer Academy along with beer brewed exquisite water will be available to sample.

Springing from Kojš’ quotidian curiosity about hydration, he and the invited speakers and artists promise to unleash a torrent of profound revelations about this seemingly simple yet remarkable, perhaps unrecognized privilege–the element of water.  Kojs hopes that we never take it for granted again.

WHAT: FETA Water Festival

WHERE: The Bridge Miami, 4220 NW 7th Ave., Miami

WHEN: 6:30 to 8 p.m., Water in Beverages, 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., performances and installations, opening with an artist perspectives panel, Friday, March 13, 6:30 to 8 p.m., What Do We Drink? Miami Tap Water Competition, 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., performances and installations, opening with an artist perspectives panel, Saturday, March 14.

COST: Two-day pass general admission, $15, $10 students

INFORMATION: Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts (FETA) Water Festival

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