By experimenting with audio recording, video, photography, drawing, and painting, six artists have claimed the sounds around them as their own in “Smack.” The exhibit, which made its debut on Saturday, Feb. 9 at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, has a way of making ordinary noises seem suddenly strange and new.

The group of artists involved, composed of Matthew Antezzo, Martin Kersels, Gordon Monahan, Bruce Nauman, Susan Turcot, and William Wegman, all use distinct actions such as scratching, stomping, or dragging to explore specific sounds. These sounds come from performance-based gestures, which are either choreographed or completely left to chance.

The intriguing show will be on display now through April 20 at Skidmore’s Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs. Ginny Kollak, curatorial assistant at the museum, said the exhibit was organized by guest curator Meredith Mowder, a senior Art History and Studio Art major at the college.

Mowder has worked as an intern at the museum for the past three years. Kollak said the student deals with a lot of video and sound in her own art, and hopes to go on to become a curator.

“This exhibit is a great coming out for her,” Kollak said.

So far, the response to the show has been extremely positive. Kollak said some of the more comical pieces have had many people laughing out loud.

“This is a great opportunity to see work by some promising artists,” she said. “I also believe it’s a way for the artists to make themselves heard.”

Kollak said the opening reception for “Smack” was very well received. More than 500 people turned out for it, as well as for Joseph Grigely’s “St. Cecilia,” which opened the same night.

Deaf since childhood, Grigely creates works that explore the failures, idiosyncrasies and ruptures of language and communication. He first gained notoriety in the early 1990s for a series of works called “Conversations with the Hearing.”

His current exhibition, which runs through June 8, will bring together a number of Grigely’s recent works. Displayed as small table-top tableaux, intimate wall-based works or room-sized installations, the pieces in this series are generated from the scraps of paper and handwritten notes the artist makes to converse with people when he can’t read their lips.

An ongoing theme in Grigely’s work is the exploration of sound—from his own memories of sound as a child, to investigations of how sound might look. That theme is particularly evident in a new commission called “St. Cecilia.”

Named after the patron saint of music, the work is a two-channel video installation featuring footage of a choir singing several beloved Christmas carols with new lyrics written by Grigely.

The artist’s alterations reflect the misunderstandings and confusions of lip-reading, and probe the nuances in the relationship between seeing and hearing.

Both shows are free of charge, and open to the public. However, Kollak said there is a suggested donation of $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens to help continue the exhibits and programs held at Tang.

The museum is open Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. It’s closed on Mondays and major holidays.

For more information about the exhibits, call 580-8080 or visit http://tang.skidmore.edu.