Playing at the artful margins has been Haroon Mirza’s strength, and his installation cryptically titled “/\/\/\/\/\/\” at the University of Michigan Museum of Art certainly falls within his predictably unpredictable arena.

As guest curator Elizabeth Thomas—past curator for the MATRIX Program for Contemporary Art at The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, and the Forum program at the Carnegie Museum of Art—says in her introduction to the installation, “In-betweenness is central to Mirza’s work, as it exists between many states—sculpture and installation, sound and noise, choreographed experience and live event, composition and chance, order and chaos, art and music.”

It’s all there in this overwhelming abstract tableau.

“/\/\/\/\/\/\” sits stolidly in the heart of the museum's Irving Stenn Jr. Family Project Gallery: a massive, room-sized triangular wedge of 765 smaller polyfoam triangular wedges arranged in 12 rows. Put them all together and there's a really big installation jutting out in the UMMA’s most experimental art gallery.

But this description only covers the more geometrically abstract “sculpture and installation” part of Mirza’s program. It leaves out other elements to wrestle with—and the cleverness of Mirza’s work is that it will wrestle with you as much as you grapple with it.

As Thomas additionally tells us, “This exhibition is the first in a trilogy of site-responsive works in which Mirza is reducing (his) visual and sonic gestures to respond to the architecture itself rather than inserting objects into the space.”

Entering the space becomes a matter of negotiating one’s way from one side of the Stenn Gallery to the other. Rather than being obstructive, “/\/\/\/\/\/\” is instead directive. And it’s at this point that Thomas’ observation about choreographed “sound and noise” comes to the fore.

For as significant as the oversized polyfoam wedge is to Mirza’s art, the unique serial music that heartily sings to itself really pushes the aesthetic limit. This music’s beeps and honk begin to repeat if one listens long enough; otherwise, it only seems to be a random arrangement of high-pitched squeals.

Ultimately, one has to subordinate one’s expectations of both art and music to Mirza’s imagination. And that makes “/\/\/\/\/\/\” a surprisingly uncompromising work of art.

As the UMMA’s gallery statement says, “The installation itself performs for us as an ‘unfolding composition in time,’ and we the audience unfold too, through our acts of looking, listening, seeing, and hearing.”

Noting that the London-based artist’s “unique time-based concerts have captured the attention of the public and critics alike,” Mirza has been awarded “the prestigious Northern Art Prize in 2010, and his work for the 2011 Venice Biennale garnered the Silver Lion Award as the most promising young artist.”

These awards are some serious notice for an artist barely in his 30s. And Mirza certainly lives up to the expectation as “/\/\/\/\/\/\” is also one of three parts being mounted here and in Europe. A second part titled “\|\|\|\| \|\|\” is currently on display at the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland through May; and the third part has gone up at Berlin’s Ernst Schering Foundation as “--{}{}{} {}--{}{}{}{}--{}.”

“/\/\/\/\/\/\” is merely North America’s chance—the UMMA’s installation being Mirza’s first American exhibition—to see this enigmatic artist’s virtuosity as he challenges audiences here and abroad.

“Haroon Mirza: /\/\/\/\/\/\” will continue through July 22 at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, in the Irving Stenn, Jr., Family Project Gallery (in the Maxine and Stuart Frankel and the Frankel Family Wing), 525 S. State St. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. For information, call 734-763-UMMA.