Sean Langlais is not your everyday contemporary artist. Rather than use canvas or clay, Langlais prefers to craft his art from metals and sound. In collaboration with the Department of Art and Art History, Eastern Connecticut State University is hosting an exhibition by Langlais titled, “Mars: A Sound Art Installation.” Showing from Oct. 6 to Dec.7, “Mars” is the first exhibition of its kind on Eastern’s campus. An opening reception was held Nov. 2.

When visitors enter the exhibit, they see a wall of metal that resembles a panel off a space shuttle rather than a piece of art. The exhibit can best be described as what Langlais calls “the ever-growing and complex relationship between organic processes in nature and newly emerging products of technology.” The display was created from 100 industrial panels, each rigged with a magnet and light-absorbent materials.

Upon closer inspection of the glimmering wall it becomes easier to understand what Langlais means. As the panels are hit with different degrees of light, each produces different sounds that mimic the static noise of nature. If you visit the art gallery during the day when it may be empty, you can hear the fair humming and whirring that comes from the simultaneous swinging of the magnets. It’s almost as if you were transported into the depth of the wilderness, with nothing but the faint chirp of insects surrounding you.

Langlais has always been fascinated with sound art. Since he was 15 years old he has considered himself to be a tinkerer, playing with and creating new things from materials that would come to form the basis of his art. He also loved the outdoors, and found himself amazed at the complexity of simple aspects of nature such as water hitting a shoreline. Admittedly, he didn’t think he was creating sound art for many years, insisting that he was simply creating from his imagination and desiring to figure out how the world operates. “I’m painting my own painting of what I see as nature,” Langlais said, “and the nature I see today is technology.”

The Art Gallery is located in Room 112 of the Fine Arts Instructional Center, on the Eastern Connecticut State University campus. Gallery hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 11 to 5 p.m.; Thursdays from 1-7 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from 2-5 p.m. Parking is available in the Cervantes parking garage and in the Student Center parking lot. For more information regarding this and other exhibitions at The Art Gallery, please call (860) 465-4659 or visit www.easternct.edu/artgallery.