Stephen Mueller

I embraced a thick sheet of transparent bronze acrylic. It was heavy and the same size as me, and it pressed my body into the floor. I used scissors to carve long scratches into the other side of it.

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April 27–28, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I piled a large mound of loose soil on some white sheets, under an empty table. I placed a bowl of water on the floor nearby. With a thin layer of gauze covering my head, I formed the soil into small balls and placed them on the surface of the table. I tried to space the balls evenly and make them exactly the same size. The sheets are from a previous performance, called Still Believing. The table isn’t.

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April 26–27, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I sat in a green chair in front of a green screen, covered in green fabric. One of my hands was exposed. The Hand was tethered to the ceiling by a long white sling, which held it in place at hand-holding height. There was an empty chair next to where I used to be. The Hand held a note that said: “this hand is for holding; please put this note back when you’re done.”

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April 25–26, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

With an upside-down sleeping bag covering most of my body, I gilded a large dead log with 24-carat gold leaf. A nylon rope, hanging over a branch, was tied loosely around my chest. The other end of the rope was tied around a miniature model of an a-frame cabin. I embraced the log tightly while I waited for the adhesive to set. Sometimes I fell asleep like that. Someone told me the branch swayed when I breathed, but I could only see its shadow.

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April 24–25, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I performed figure skating routines on a synthetic ice surface for whoever was in the room. A life-size rag doll doppelgänger made of black sequinned costume fabric was wrapped around my head and upper body the whole time. Once an hour, I took off my skates and sharpened the blades by hand. I tried to be entertaining when I skated, even though I’m not very good at it anymore. I stopped performing when the blisters hurt too much. I didn’t fall down.

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April 23–24, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I knelt for fifteen minutes at a time with fifteen-minute breaks in between. I used a kitchen timer to time myself. I started with five-minute breaks but the kneeling became too painful after a while. While kneeling, I faced a corner made of two false walls. The walls were covered in floral wallpaper. After kneeling, I made a tick mark on a wall stud with a black grease pencil. I sat on a chair during breaks inside an unsealed, person-sized plastic bag. I closed my eyes in the bag, and breathed slowly. I tried not to move.

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April 22–23, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I lit and replaced votive candles at a memorial in the corner of the gallery every four hours for six straight days and nights. I set a timer so I wouldn’t forget. The candles were placed in front of a photo, surrounded by flowers. Exactly 785 candles were lit. Fresh flowers were added daily. The photo is a document from a previous performance, called Monument. Tending to the memorial interrupted all of the other performances in the exhibition. I didn’t get much sleep. I didn’t forget.

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April 22–28, 2024
in Dead Body
Artspeak Gallery
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Justin Elliott.

I buried a cookie tin filled with sentimental objects in my parents’ backyard. I dug the hole with my hands and a small trowel I found in the garage. I did it late at night, so nobody could see. I used to keep the tin in the bottom drawer of my night stand, on the right side of the bed. I didn’t want it there anymore but I couldn’t throw it away. The burial site was paved over with a concrete slab the next morning. You can see it from the dining room window.

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July 24, 2021
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I performed one private action every day for thirty-nine days—an intervention; an interruption; a reminder; an escape. The actions were improvised and varied in length and mood. One photo was taken of each action. It was printed as a postcard and mailed the same day. A short description was written on the back under the date. The postcards were placed on a shelf in no particular order as they arrived.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

We took pictures of the moon from different cities on June 2, 2015. I made them into posters and taped them to a wall over a table. There was a cassette transcription machine at each end of the table and there were chairs for sitting. One machine contained a tape labelled MOON that played field recordings of the moon into headphones. The other machine contained a tape labelled YOU that played voices into the room through the machine's built-in speaker. There were two typewritten suggestions: “Listen to the moon” and “Talk about the moon”. I left a microphone for people to record with. Everything was tricky to listen to but we tried.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller and Hannah Richardson.

People watched an old television on the floor. A security camera high on a wall behind them fed video to an invisible TV. A security camera aimed at the invisible TV fed video to the TV on the floor. People watched an old television on the floor playing live video of an invisible television playing live video of them watching live video of themselves on an old television on the floor. Each monitor displayed the time and date. The times fell progressively out of sync. Raw footage from both cameras was captured by a digital video recorder. The TV was set to channel 2.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos and still frame composites by Stephen Mueller.

A speaker cable running from a Behringer tube amp was plugged into a mirror leaning against a wall. They looked at one another. The amplifier was shrouded in gauze. The cable levitated.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I wrote a letter to you and sealed it in an envelope. It was waiting on the table for you to arrive. The envelope said: “This letter is for you. Please open it and keep it. Seal your reply in an envelope and leave it here when you go.” I left paper, a pen, and some more envelopes that said the same thing. I hope you opened the letter and read it and kept it. I hope you replied.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I recorded my friend Sofie in my parents' backyard. I held the camera in my hand the whole time and tried to keep it steady but it shook when I smiled or laughed. I didn't record how we sounded. We watched TV in the basement with my dad after the recording. We sat in our favourite spot. I projected the video onto a gallery wall in an endless loop. I miss her.

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August 24–October 1, 2016
in Two Weeks Last Spring
DNA Artspace
London, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I performed in Mixer (Toronto), initiated by Christof Migone, with an ensemble comprised of Ronnie Clarke, Jessica Karuhanga, Migone, Lisa Myers, Juliana Pivato, Tazeen Qayyum, Xuan Ye, and Andrew Zukerman. We mixed and remixed works by ourselves and each other with works loaned to us by Abbas Akhavan, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Duncan MacDonald, Hazel Meyer, Jon Sasaki, and Skawennati.

I brought two glass cylinders. One had three thousand black marbles in it and the other one was empty. I suggested: “Fill your mouth with as many marbles as you can at whatever pace you choose. Whisper everything you wanted to say to everyone you love into ignored or forgotten cracks/holes/crevices/openings in the building for as long as you want or as long as it takes.” We did or didn't do it in varying ways over five sessions. The empty cylinder was for the used ones.

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May 25–29, 2016
in Christof Migone's Mixer (Toronto) *
Koerner Hall (lobby)
Toronto, ON

* Part of the 21C Music Festival; co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art_Toronto_Canada and The Royal Conservatory.

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Photos by Hannah Richardson.

I was invited to participate in The School of Making Thinking's Words and [    ]: A Durational Conference of Art and Thought, a fifty-six hour event “featuring round-the-clock live programming of 100 interdisciplinary performative presentations.” I used a handheld voice recorder to record audio onto one hundred and twelve cassette tapes for the duration of the conference. I attended presentations; I participated in workshops; I napped in a sleeping bag; I thought about loneliness; I listened to live radio; I performed in the dark for one person; I was curious about neighbouring spaces; I ate three meals a day; I walked around the block in the sunshine; I spent time with new strangers; I caught up with old friends; I made a long-distance phone call; I missed opportunities. I dropped each tape off at a listening station in the hall. There were transcription machines there for hearing the cassettes and there were notebooks for transcribing their contents. There were communal voice recorders for roaming, editing, and recording. I didn’t label or organize the tapes and I didn’t punch out their write-protect tabs. There were pens and headphones and people. There was a jar of extra batteries.

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May 6–8, 2016
in Words and [    ]: A Durational Conference of Art and Thought
presented by The School of Making Thinking
The Darling Foundry
Montréal, QC

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I tacked old photos of my parents to a wall. I read them each a letter and listened to the photos for a response. I placed the photos on the floor and pointed an amplifier at them. I plugged a microphone into my mother’s old tape recorder and pressed record. Someone turned out all the lights. I asked loud questions. Two of the questions were: “Are you there?” and “Are you proud of me?” After each question I took a photo with an instant camera. In the light again I played back the recording but I couldn’t hear anything. I tacked the photos to the wall but there was nothing there. I left the building and drove two hours to my parents’ house to deliver the letters.

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February 18, 2016
in Finishing Lines
Forest City Gallery
London, ON

We embraced for twenty-two hours. A single hug. We could see each other’s faces on TVs on the floor. We didn’t let go.

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January 30–31, 2016
in Duration and Dialogue Performance Art Festival and Symposium
Katzman Contemporary
Toronto, ON

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Photos by Natasha Bailey and Johannes Zits. Still frame composites by Stephen Mueller.

I gave a series of fifty-minute slide presentations. Each slide was projected for thirty seconds and I provided narration in the form of personal anecdotes to anyone who sat next to me on the couch. The images were culled from Google Images searches for the years "1977" through "2015" with no particular focus on content or subject matter. “Authentic” family photos were peppered into the series. The narratives were improvised and each presentation was different. The wall clock ran on a C battery.

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September 25, 2015
in Missing Person
artLAB Gallery (Western University)
London, ON

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Performance photos by Brad Isaacs.

I used a penny to scrape dried blood off of eight years’ worth of my father’s used blood glucose test strips. I collected the dried blood in a glass mortar dish and crushed it into a fine powder with a pestle. I reconstituted the blood and finger-painted the bottom of my feet with it. I put my socks and shoes back on and walked home.

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September 24, 2015
in Missing Person
artLAB Gallery (Western University)
London, ON

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Photos by Brad Isaacs.

A room for waiting. Surveillance video of me sitting in the room played continuously on a television monitor. Or someone like me. In a room like it. Before, during, or after. There were artificial plants and floral prints in gold frames. There was a hardcover book about ghosts. There was a ticking clock. We waited and waited.

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September 18–29, 2015
in Missing Person
artLAB Gallery (Western University)
London, ON

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Photos by Brad Isaacs. Still frame composite by Stephen Mueller.

September 17: I stood in front of a smartphone camera lip-syncing My Heart is a Warning by Basia Bulat. The song was played on a portable cassette player and I rewound the tape each time the song ended. I held a live microphone plugged into a small amplifier. The camera live-streamed my lip-syncing to YouTube. The stream was projected onto a wall behind me with a slight delay. No audio was captured.

September 18–30: The cassette was removed and the microphone was placed inside the cassette player. The amplifier faced the wall and produced high-pitched low-volume drones of feedback. The camera live-streamed to YouTube.

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September 17–29, 2015
in Missing Person
artLAB Gallery (Western University)
London, ON

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Photos by Brad Isaacs.

A didactic panel outside the room stated: “High-definition video is being recorded continuously by a tripod-mounted DSLR camera and projected onto the back wall of the exhibition space. Projection is delayed, during which time the video is processed (parcelled, cropped, encoded) and archived. Every two minutes a clip is randomly selected from the growing database and projected onto the wall. An individual standing within the sightline of the camera will be recorded and their image may be projected, re-recorded, re-projected and so on, at/on various times/dates throughout the duration of the performance.”

I stayed inside the room. A prerecorded looping video was projected continuously onto the far wall. An on-camera HDMI recorder framed the scene and displayed what it saw to spectators but did not record them. Two security cameras positioned in opposite corners of the room recorded continuously for the duration of the exhibition but their footage was not displayed. The front door of the gallery had an alarm that would chime when someone entered. I used that chime as a signal to get into place. I re-performed my own image for spectators. I spent a lot of time alone.

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October 2–10, 2014
in M:ST 7 (Mountain Standard Time Performative Arts Festival)
TRUCK Contemporary Art
Calgary, AB

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Photos by Kristine Thoreson. Still frame composites by Stephen Mueller.

I walked 176 km from my apartment in London to my childhood home in Windsor. It took me thirty-three hours. I didn’t stop or sleep. I took one photo every hour of whatever was in front of me. My parents were surprised to see me.

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December 11–12, 2013
Wortley Village, London, ON–Forest Glade, Windsor, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I walked counterclockwise around the perimeter of King Edward School, tracing invisible lines on the walls of the building with the fingertips of my left hand. I walked for twenty-four hours. I didn't stop or wear a watch. We made maps and marks on each other.

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September 27–28, 2013
in Phantom Wing
King Edward School
Calgary, AB

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Photos by Caitlind Brown.

I sat on a chair at the end of a table, shrouded in white sheets. I sat there for 175 hours over 35 days. My parents' dining room table was balanced on a chair at the other end of the table. Its matching chairs were balanced precariously on top of it. We all tried to remain as motionless as possible.

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June 7–August 3, 2013
in Ways of Living
Artcite Inc.
Windsor, ON

April 11, 2013
John Labatt Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, ON

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Photos by Rory O’Connor and Stephen Mueller.

I plucked every beard hair from my face, one hair at a time, using a pair of surgical tweezers. I placed each hair into a specimen jar and took one photo of my face and one of the back of my head. I repeated this process until all of the hair was removed. The entire process took fifty-five hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-nine seconds. I stitched the photos together into two time-lapse videos. I projected the videos onto suspended translucent screens. They looped in sync. The specimen jar was displayed on a plinth. The jar is labelled “I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you.”

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February 13–March 28, 2015
Latitude 53
Edmonton, AB

May 2–31, 2014
in Strange Encounters (w/ Jean-François Bouchard, Chris Boyne, and Anna Gustafson)
Open Space
Victoria, BC

September 13–October 19, 2013
UAS Satellite Gallery
Calgary, AB

June 7–August 3, 2013
in Ways of Living
Artcite Inc.
Windsor, ON

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Photos by Stephen Mueller.

I stayed inside a display case made of one-way glass, divided into two workstations. The display case was lit from inside and reflected its contents infinitely within itself. People could see me but I couldn’t see them. I could hear them, though. There was a small desk in each workstation. I alternated between sitting and kneeling at the desks. While sitting I used a Braille slate and stylus to repetitively punch the phrase “I miss you” into a long strip of paper. While kneeling I reached through holes in the mirrored divider and dissected the phrase into individual “dots”, using forceps and a scalpel. I categorized the dots into twenty-four glass specimen dishes. I performed these tasks during gallery hours in four cities for a total of 381 hours over 68 days.

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September 10–16, 2012
in Visualeyez 13
Latitude 53
Edmonton, AB

May 5–June 16, 2012
Eastern Edge
St. John’s, NL

December 7–18, 2011
in 2011 AGW Biennial
Art Gallery of Windsor
Windsor, ON

November 12–December 11, 2010
The New Gallery
Calgary, AB

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Photos by Noel Bégin.