All Colors Present
2025
A full-spectrum meditation on restraint and duration.
In 2025, All Colors Present was performed in 36 cities throughout the US. A collaboration with photographer Tom Lecky, it's a nearly 60-minute sound and visual meditation using nothing but Tom's photographs and two small drums. The variety of rooms it's happened in are a testimony to how much "place" affects the sound, and thus, the experience — it will always be something new with each room. The work extends the IN.SIGHT investigation into how disciplined reduction generates perceptual expansion. Rather than building toward climax, the piece invites inner quietude. Through repetition and incremental shift, minimal gesture opens into a wide chromatic and sonic spectrum.
Video
Documentation
Concept
How can fullness emerge from constraint? What does it mean for repetition to reveal rather than obscure? All Colors Present proposes that intensity need not rely on density. Through steady pulse, tonal sustain, and slow variation, the work transforms apparent simplicity into spectral depth. Tom Lecky's photographs are an integral part of the performance, offering their own detail and mystery in such a complementary way to the sound. Table of the Elements, who plan to release a physical edition, describe the recording: "Here, recorded in real-time and with no overdubs, two crisp beats repeat and reverberate—one, then two; two, then one—in a confluence of hand and stick, drumhead, and heartbeat. Yet, from this seemingly metronomic exercise blossoms every possible tint and hue of infinite spectral sound." The lineage resonates with the long-form compositional rigor of Table of the Elements and artists such as Tony Conrad: "Like Tony Conrad's surging Outside the Dream Syndicate, the aural and conceptual headwinds are real, but the perceived affronts of provocation are not. These works are not endurance challenges, nor are they threadbare minimalist upholstery. They are not obstacles. They are invitations." All Colors Present encompasses a lifelong path of developing a "personal relationship" to the instrument — learning from the drums themselves rather than technique alone. It celebrates moving percussion beyond time-keeping into something much more complex. The "sense of it all" is what happens during a performance: the very particular line between tedium and wondrous awe that moves and shapes into almost physical form. Creating something so simplistic that it ends up revealing a puzzle as to what reality itself even is. Can drums do that? All Colors Present says yes.
System / Method
- Artist-led durational composition — Jon Mueller’s percussion-based practice centers disciplined repetition, tonal sustain, and controlled dynamic expansion; structure unfolds through incremental variation rather than dramatic contrast
- Visual counterpoint — Tom Lecky’s photographic work emphasizes form, memory, abstraction, and material detail; imagery operates as quiet architectural reinforcement rather than narrative illustration
- Live electronics and feedback systems — Lihuen Sirvent’s Glare integrates acoustic performance with electronic processing; sound-light-video interactions shaped by responsive feedback structures and custom-built interfaces
- Spectral pacing — gradual expansion of harmonic and textural range; attention calibrated toward micro-shift recognition rather than macro-event
- Listening-chamber configuration — performance presented fully seated; spatial environment structured to reduce distraction and heighten collective stillness
- Curatorial framing — Groupwork + Torn Space + Eannelli situate the work within IN.SIGHT’s broader research into duration, perception, and atmosphere
Spatial Experience
The theater functioned as a chamber of sustained attention. Social energy gathered prior to the performance and then settled into collective stillness. Sound accumulated gradually, reshaping the perceived dimensions of the room without overt spectacle. Visual elements reinforced contour and edge. The environment rewarded patience. Perception slowed. Subtle variations became expansive. What first appeared minimal revealed full chromatic depth over time.
Documentation Notes
Performed in 36 US cities in 2025. Buffalo installment: October 11 at 612 Fillmore Ave. Presented by Groupwork in collaboration with Torn Space Theater and Eannelli. Featured performances by Jon Mueller + Tom Lecky (All Colors Present) and María Lihuen Sirvent (Glare). Tom Lecky's photographs are an integral part of the performance. Table of the Elements plan to release a physical edition. This installment marked a refinement of the IN.SIGHT framework, clarifying how guest artists operate within a curated perceptual system focused on duration, discipline, and spectral expansion.