52Hz Sound Cabinet

52Hz Sound Cabinet is an interdisciplinary sound art and research initiative founded in 2016 by sound artist and composer Xingyu Li. The platform explores listening as an expanded artistic, ecological, and cultural practice beyond the conventional boundaries of music.

Working through field recording, environmental acoustics, spatial composition, and long-term site-based research, 52Hz Sound Cabinet investigates how sound shapes human perception of place, memory, and ecological relationships. Its projects focus particularly on documenting rare, endangered, and often overlooked acoustic environments while developing new artistic frameworks for listening.

The initiative originated with the Amazon Rainforest Sound Expedition in 2016, an extensive field recording project across South America that documented disappearing natural soundscapes and established the methodological foundations of the platform. Subsequent projects have included Sound Journey to the West, a long-term exploration of vernacular musical traditions and acoustic cultures across Xinjiang, China, and The Sonic Expedition (Chinese: 寻声大航海), an ongoing sailing-based artistic and scientific research project initiated in 2024 to investigate marine acoustic environments and construct future-oriented archives of ocean soundscapes.

Through mobile recording systems deployed across diverse geographical and cultural environments, 52Hz Sound Cabinet continuously develops an evolving archive of environmental and cultural sounds. These archives are subsequently translated into films, multi-channel installations, immersive performances, publications, and interdisciplinary artistic works.

Approaching sound as both a measurable physical phenomenon and a cultural medium, 52Hz Sound Cabinet integrates scientific inquiry with artistic practice to reconsider the role of listening within contemporary ecological, technological, and social environments.