Conceptual art can be challenging and intriguing — or pretentious and alienating. While most people can look at the Mona Lisa and "get" what Leonardo da Vinci was attempting to express — or at least be satisfied that their interpretation of the masterpiece makes sense — contemporary works that embrace conceptual abstraction may leave them baffled.

"What does it mean?" they ask themselves. "And am I getting the same thing out of this as everyone else?"

The concept behind "Stylus: A Project by Ann Hamilton" — an installation on view at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts through Jan. 22 — is that the hand's reach and the voice's call represent parallel extensions of the body into space. The project, which was created specifically for the Pulitzer building by internationally recognized artist Hamilton, incorporates an eclectic range of elements, from player pianos to jumping beans.

In a recent interview at the Pulitzer, Hamilton described "Stylus," which features sound design and music by Shahrokh Yadegari, as a "multichannel sound system that allows, and invites, interaction in different ways."

"We're also trying to set a stage where different forms of gathering can happen," said Hamilton, 54. "For a long time, I've been drawn to thinking about how multiple voices come together to retain each of their own voices, but become a larger whole."

The project also will include workshops starting in August.

Matthias Waschek, director of the Pulitzer and curator of the installation, said such an approach is ideal for the space, which seeks to be both a sanctuary and a laboratory.

"It's not generic gallery space," he said. "It's a very strong architecture that really challenges you."

As the project's curator, his role was a bit unconventional, he said: "When you're curator of a show by an artist who's no longer with us, you have to understand the ideas and adapt them.

"In this case, the role of curator is that I'm the sounding board for ideas, I bring our institutional identity into the mix, and I help coordinate the process. But all the ideas are really Ann's."

Upon entering the museum, each visitor is handed a thin box containing information regarding "Stylus" and is invited to sign in with a pencil while wearing a stiff paper glove. This puts across the message that the installation will be a sensory experience, balancing the old-fashioned (LPs to play, books to peruse) with the state-of-the-art (ethereal videos and ambient sound design).

A big part of the charm of "Stylus," which has been conceived to take creative advantage of the building designed by Tadao Ando, lies in encountering its surprises. But it's not giving too much away to reveal that sounds may be coaxed from the installation's two player pianos without touching them, or that the significance of a table full of jumping beans — which may be interpreted as symbolizing life — cannot be fully appreciated without taking a gander at what's suspended under the table.

Hamilton's approach to her art is perhaps best expressed on her website, annhamiltonstudio.com: "Noted for a dense accumulation of materials, Hamilton's site responsive environments create immersive experiences that poetically respond to the architectural presence and social history of their sites."

In a way, Hamilton said, "Stylus" took her back to her roots in textile design.

"In the weaving of cloth, you have the same structure in some ways as you have in a choir," she said. "All these multiple threads that go together."

Hamilton is among the most honored artists in her field, recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1993 and the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities in 2008. In 1999, she was chosen to represent the United States at the 48th Venice Biennale.

Her installations have been presented at major venues including the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Art Institute of Chicago; Historiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden; and the Musee d'art Contemporain in Lyon, France.

"Corpus," Hamilton's 2004 installation at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, involved dropping an estimated 7 million sheets of 8-by-11-inch onionskin paper from 40 specially built machines. The New York Times praised "Corpus" as an experience "in which we move from awe to disorientation to fear to sovereign observation from on high."

Waschek said it was seeing the installation at the Massachusetts museum that persuaded him to bring Hamilton to the Pulitzer.

"She seemed very interested in the place in which she was doing her installation — not just in its physicality, but in its history," he said. "I was mesmerized."