Hi Kimi and Brianne,

First, Kimi, your thoughts on working sound great. We can keep working on process as we go...

Below is a very rough outline of a project proposal. It is a little long, so let me know what could go. Also feel free to edit, change, supplement... this is coming out of the few emails we've had, but is synthesized by me - in light of the way we're talking about working, I think it is important to have your voices there too (although I don't want to make it more complicated than necessary... right now we just need to get it turned in).

I could also use:

- Brianne's bio
- any photos/images that you each feel represent your work so I can attach them to the proposal
- a TITLE!! (I'm terrible at coming up with titles) (currently the title is represented by "x" below) (and actually, I'm kind of liking the title being just "x" .... hmm... )
- opinions on length of performance (I'm thinking maybe 15-20 minutes, but I'm open to shorter or longer... they are looking for anything between 12 and 30 minutes)

"x" is a piece that will be created over the next month, across distance, between artists in three states (Louisiana, South Carolina and Indiana). "x" will begin with the recent replication of Stanley Milgram's 1960's obedience experiments. Milgram's experiments, and Jerry M. Burger's replication of those experiments, asked participants in the research to give what they believed to be electric shocks to others, and noted at what levels participants finally said "no" to the authority figures telling them to do so.

We will begin with these experiments as fodder for our work, and will examine questions around and reflections on obedience, pain, and willingness to inflict pain in certain circumstances - including relationship to authority, distancing ourselves from the recipient of the pain, and the role of increment (ie, if the pain is gradually increased, rather than heightened quickly).

We share a belief that our collaborative process is inherently political, in that we are making space for each other even as we bring our own ideas to the table, and that we are working across geographic distance (which can also symbolize the way any artists work at creative distances, whether ackknowledged or not) and will need to find ways to cross that distance. We hope that by embracing a process that is one of acceptance, respect and complexity, rather than dictating the final outcome/structure of our performance before we even begin the process, we will trust and allow connections to happen. We will be embracing tipping points as we go, making decisions that will carry us in unexpected directions that none of us would have discovered on our own.