TESSERACT, ACT I, my dissertation piece and research project at the University of Chicago, is a work for amplified soprano saxophone quartet and octophonic (8-channel) fixed media electronics. This work plays with spatial dimensions, imagination, and perception. The universe, as we know it, exists in three dimensions: height, length, and width. As tri-dimensional beings, we can only perceive dimensions equal to or below ours, like the two-dimensional x-y coordinate plane. But this limitation hasn’t stopped humans from imagining dimensional universes with more than these three elements. The concept of the fourth dimension–a dimensional plane above ours and inaccessible from our tri-dimensional reality–for instance, was first published by French mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert in his book Dimensions (1754) and popularized by Carl Sagan on his television show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980). During his explanation of the fourth dimension, Sagan summons the Tesseract. The Tesseract is a four-dimensional structure that exists only in the realm of possibility, thus its true form remains only a hypothesis. My work, TESSERACT, ACT I is an attempt to sonically portray the idea of a hypercube, to build an aural Tesseract. The sound in this structure is designed to actuate the listener’s inner ear perception, or psychoacoustic space of listening within an internal, subjective reality. The sounds’ height, length, and width are used in such a way that allows a fourth sonic dimension to dynamically emerge as psychoacoustic phenomena, thus inviting the listener to play along with what belongs in the acoustic realm and what emerges within one’s inner aural space. TESSERACT, ACT I is an attempt to alter a concrete physical space into an imagined and real aural space, revealing a sonic reality that may emerge both physically and metaphysically. Within the invisible, inner auditory layer of psychoacoustics, space and silence have equal weight. This allows physical performance space to become internally active within the ear/mind of the listener. Most importantly, the listener’s motions throughout the space make its dimensions malleable, so that the listener’s “when and where” dictate the sonic experience. The concept of building such an auditory space is by no means novel. Spatialized audio and psychoacoustic games, and can be found in the musical traditions of Japanese gagaku and Indonesian gamelan, for example. In contemporary Western music works such as Kontakte (1958-60) by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Atmosphères (1961) by Györgi Ligeti, and the grandiose Prometeo (1981-84) by Luigi Nono are canonic examples of how auditory effects can be explored with the combination of orchestras, electronics, and spatialized seating plans. Technologies used here in TESSERACT, ACT I, such as ambisonics and imaginary space creation are crucial in the fast-growing field of virtual reality (VR). TESSERACT, ACT I builds its space through invisible sonic lines projected by either acoustic instruments (four amplified saxophones) or by fixed-media electronics (projected via an array of eight speakers). These elements interact through a series of psychoacoustic phenomena, which provocatively destabilize the independent identity of any single element. Later movements of this work will explore additional spatial electronic music techniques further in-depth, using tools such as signal analysis and decomposition to more fully explore the theories of sound discussed below. What happens inside of the TESSERACT, ACT I will be discovered by whomever ventures into it during this performance/installation. The listener will be invited to move around in the space while listening, thus becoming a living part of the performance experience. The piece shortens the barrier between where the sound is produced and where it is perceived, thus enabling a mode of active listening, where the listener becomes an important element of the work. As such, this work expands several horizons simultaneously: what a saxophone quartet can do instrumentally; how fixed media electronics can be spatially deployed; and most importantly, how the listener’s inner perception can become a crucial filter for the living work. This piece brings creative concepts and innovative theories from scientific, and perceptual research into the aesthetic space of musical creation. Above all things, TESSERACT, ACT I promotes an immersive, sensorial, and extremely playful experience to the interactive audience.