In today’s landscape of sound art and cross-media creation, the relationship between emotion and perception has increasingly become a central concern for both artists and scholars. The driving force behind my work BRECVEMA-informed Suite stems from a desire to integrate research in music psychology with contemporary sound art practice. Through years of study and experimentation, I have come to recognise that traditional modes of musical expression often rely on aesthetic intuition or culturally shaped conventions, while the mechanisms that actually trigger emotional response are grounded in deeper, more specific, and more universally observable psychological processes. The BRECVEMA model—Brain Stem Reflex, Rhythmic Entrainment, Evaluative Conditioning, Emotional Contagion, Visual Imagery, Episodic Memory, Musical Expectancy, and Aesthetic Judgement—offers a framework that breaks down the complex process of how sound activates emotion into operable, analyzable structures.

A second reason for choosing this theme lies in my long-standing interest in the sonic explorations of the twentieth century. From Varèse’s approach to noise, to Reich’s minimalist phasing, to Lucier’s iterative recording works that reveal the relationship between space and perception, these historical experiments not only expanded the formal language available to sound art, but also illuminated pathways through which sound shapes the body, attention, and the experience of time. Combining these methodological traditions with the BRECVEMA mechanisms allows me to attempt something unprecedented in my own work—each movement becomes a kind of “psychoacoustic experiment,” while still maintaining artistic coherence and aesthetic intention.

Furthermore, throughout my research, I have become increasingly aware that sonic emotion is never purely physiological; it is profoundly informed by culture, geography, and historical experience. This is also why, when planning the reference list and artwork examples for this project, I intentionally selected practices from Europe, North America, East Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Theoretical perspectives such as Ahmed’s (2004) discussion of the cultural politics of emotion, Feld’s (1990) writing on Kaluli sound culture in Papua New Guinea, and Stoever’s (2016) critique of racialised listening all underscore that “emotion” and “sound” are not merely universal bodily responses but are deeply entangled with cultural meaning and subjective identity.

As a result, the planning of this work embodies a dual structure that bridges “science and sensibility” as well as “experiment and culture.” On one hand, each movement corresponds directly to a BRECVEMA mechanism and employs mid-century compositional techniques to reinforce that mechanism’s sonic characteristics—for example, using noise bursts to trigger the brain stem reflex, or phased pulses to achieve rhythmic entrainment. On the other hand, in the choice of materials, spatial design, and timbral construction, I incorporate cross-cultural sound sources, auditory semantics, and listening habits, ensuring that the work is not merely a psychoacoustic exercise but also a journey through cultural perception and emotional experience.

This project responds to contemporary artistic interests in emotional mechanisms, the need for cross-cultural approaches to sound, and my own ongoing curiosity about how sound shapes attention, memory, and affect. Throughout the planning process, my aim has been to create a work that carries theoretical depth and aesthetic vitality; one that provides sensory engagement while also prompting reflection on the relationship between emotion, the body, and culture.