To an (as yet unnamed, potential performance) collaborator:

What kinds of materials are you interested in? And then, what kinds of materials are you willing to give me, in quantity? If you had to gather 10 trash bags full of X, what would X be–and how do you feel about X? What is X like in your hands, in your house, in your city?

What if our agreement was this:On XYZ day, in ABC place, we will meet and do a performance. Date, time and place are all exquisitely important–don’t be put off by the letters there. The time we chose to do it will define the amount of time we have to develop the work–a factor which will have a huge impact on the process I develop. And place is vital; I want to grok the space and move from my relationship with it. We’d visit the site of our work many times throughout the development of a process for interacting with it. Maybe the space is like a home; maybe it’s like a wasteland. Both are fine and fruitful.

Throughout the period, I’d come interact with your performance practices. I’d expect you to lead me, just as I would lead you in my studio. Possibly I’d watch; possibly I’d improvise; in both I’d be receptive to every quality of your leadership, working to digest your process, to invite it to inspire and/or shatter the process I’d be developing with my pile (collection?) of X.

By the day of the performance, the 10 bags full of X will have become something new. They would have done so a while ago, after a process for transforming X developed. You would know how that transformation went because I would have invited you to participate in the work/process, whatever it was, that transforms it. (Or possibly the space would allow for accumulation of process over time. We wouldn’t know until we found one.) 

The performance would be the presentation of both processes, in motion.

This is one way to have a dialogue between visual art and performance, between my process and your process. To be honest, it’s a beautiful and productive path, one many have tread before us. Let’s see where it leads us, here and now.