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I come up with a reason why you should show up. If I can't communicate the importance of you being there, then I am not in collaboration. Is "I" essential to the collaborative process? YES. My 'I' may be the first eye, but your "I" and my "I/eye" meet and we create a third "I" or "eye", and so on. 'I" and "eye" are interchangeable in the collaborative process so long as everyone concedes to look out with all of "eye" and "I".

An agreement to an idea is made by all who agree to show up. Each "I" has to be entirely present to this idea. The idea will change, and it is through this process of mutation that collaborators come into being. It is as if the idea itself becomes infected by the participants and, even though one can claim to have been the initiator, one can rarely claim, in the collaborative model, to have foreseen the end result.

It is a giving of the "I/eye" to an idea that sits outside of self. Design, Performance, Text, Music - all give over to the idea. It sits as the only useful force of judgement.

An idea:

"I would like to create a show for September. I want it to be an intoxicatingly experiential piece about loss. If we start now, we can access five bucks and a free space. Any takers?"

I am in a smart Laundromat where you can drink smart drinks. I've met up with my designer friend, who always ends up doing his laundry at the same time ... once a year.

So he says to me, after a really uncomfortable pause:

"I have five-hundred bucks that was given to me as recompense for my lost baggage on a flight between Atlanta and New York. I never would have gotten that much if it had happened in Canada."

We both laugh at how Canadian that complaint sounds. He continues:

"I would like to put it toward the project and I think it should happen on a plane."

I like the suggestion and, as I check the spin cycle, I notice my favourite performer walking past. After our usual, quick "how ya doin?', we invariably begin to chat about what we're up to and then favourite performer says:

"My father died when I was six. He was a jet pilot; it was the one thing that made him happy and the one thing that killed him. My dream has always been to recreate his last flight."

Just then Mr. Beat walks in. He's a real natty guy. The kind of guy who does his laundry twice a week and always presses his pants. Mr. Beat is one of the most exciting sound arrangers anywhere and he says:

"I know Philip Glass. Maybe he is looking for a new take on flying-Ha Ha."

Mr. Beat is the wryest guy around. "Maybe he is..." I respond, with suspension at the end of my thought.

"Do you want me to call him?" he asks.

"Yes."

And so it goes. If the idea is good, then the funnel is formed and the rules and constraints shape up the process. If you can agree to this, agree to the chaos of sameness, the doldrums of change, if you can agree to the paradox of agreeing to something you can't yet see, then you and I have embarked upon a collaborative experience that will leave us forever changed. The 'eyes' have it-or is that I?