Now Hear This: Works by Chinese Sound Artists

Colgate University is mounting an exhibition of sound-art installations by Chinese artists whose work has never been displayed in the United States.

Sound artists use noise, live performances by musicians, recorded ambient sounds, spoken words, audio-visual tapes and other aural elements to create art installations that either have no visual elements or forge a connection between images and sounds. It has become a popular genre in China in recent years, where a new generation of avant-garde artists are pushing its boundaries.

The Colgate exhibition, “Revolution Per Minute,” will feature works by more than 30 Chinese artists who work with sound, including Wang Changcun, Yan Jun, Samson Young and members of the Shanghai noise band Torturing Nurse. “This really reflects the landscape and soundscape of China, and it’s much more diverse, much more progressive, than we imagine it could be,” said Wenhua Shi, an assistant professor of art who is curating the show along with the American-trained sound artist Dajuin Yao. The exhibition will run from March 26 through April 26 and feature 35 installations scattered throughout the Colgate campus and nearly village of Hamilton, N.Y.

Among the works will be two pieces by Mr. Young: “I am thinking in a room, different from the one you are hearing in now,” a performance piece that uses the performers’ brain waves to control a sound-making device (an homage to the sound art pioneer Alvin Lucier and his brain-wave pieces), and “Liquid Border,” which uses ambient noises from fences along the border between Hong Kong and mainland China.

Some of the other pieces touch on sensitive political and social issues, though none have been banned in China, Mr. Shi said. For instance, Ed! win Lo’s “Mourn” from 2011 is a spooky audio-visual work about candlelight vigils to commemorate the killings at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Another piece, by Xu Cheng, makes use recordings of people engaging in telephone sex and arranging casual trysts on a chat line, a subject considered edgy by Chinese standards, Mr. Shi said.