Kurt Mueller

So for me the success is the delivery of the message and whether that's getting across clearly or not. I think it's more interesting to create another engagement with that text beyond just reading it on a page or on a computer screen. 

My name's Kurt Mueller and I'm a sculptor who works with text and found objects. For New Art in Austin. I'm making a piece which is a karaoke-inspired video installation. And so, the final piece will have two speakers, a monitor with a video, and also an amp and a live microphone.

The text is Martin Luther King Jr.'s American Dream speech like a karaoke video his voice is taken away, but instead, but all the other sound being applause, or people chime in a lot and say like amen, and my lord, all that audio will be in there.

So it's just sort of this open situation where either someone just can read it or they can read it or perform it, they have a new engagement with the text.

I think just as much as having someone step up and jump in and feel inspired, and wanting to wrestle with Dr. King's legacy, what's interesting is when someone decides not to participate.

What's preventing them from doing that, and not just in terms of stage fright, or if it's more, the words of Dr. King, are not feeling capable to speak those words and so that becomes almost a moment of absence or void actually being filled.

When I come in here I try to focus on actually making things. Like art for me, like I don't come in the studio and think like it's art time.

In my head it's always, I'm always thinking about art. So when I'm driving, walking around I'm looking at things thinking about how I can configure them, tweak them, play with them, make them, and rearrange them to create a different relationship in that space.