D.C. As we continue to collaborate I think the to and fro activity is going to become far more interesting. Also as I am now writing far more with images and in a less writerly way.

R.P. For me the process of working with you is quite like a design process.

D.C. Yes, but I think it will become less that as I offer you beginnings which are already in some sort of sequence/circle as a site. Also as I become more confident to edit what you do in a design way.

R.P. Please start, in blue there are a few moments that I've drawn heavily on the images that you used. But the design thing is still there. The response aspect of the collaboration is still there for me. I use a similar sort of response thinking when I was thinking about the visual look for a site.

D.C. After my "believe" project I'm looking forward to conceiving something in a clearer way from the beginning. I may actually initiate a piece soon for us. (I just thought of that!) I'd like to begin the process in a "designish" way. I don't care where it leads, but I'd just like to do something we've not done yet. I'll put it on the back-burner and maybe dream something up when I'm away. The warm clear air should help!!

R.P. It's important to throw stuff away sometimes and start afresh. But what I'm trying to say is that the design process is really about having a starting point, something to work with and solve problems around. What you are talking about is a process of starting something new and afresh. Think about what a chair designer does ... Some people see the way I work as not be intuitive, but to make something work you need to have a idea about what is happening first. It's maybe just that I do a lot of thinking and 'actions' in my head before I actually do anything and that is why things seem like they are planned.

D.C. And this is what I'm hoping to do more and more, rather than beginning in a completely arbitrary fashion. Although arbitrary beginnings will still take place here, I just won't give them to you until I've taken them somewhere.

R.P. Actually, do you realize that often from these arbitrary beginnings you return to constant themes?

D.C. My work has constant themes: some mine, some drawn from works I've read, especially Patrick White and those he read: Rimbaud in particular. Words, the sound of them, eternity, the sun, the sea, blue, red, some flowers, the body (sometimes), the fragility of a child, smells, sounds, isolation, despair ... I'm sure there are many more. Religious stuff is very important to me as well, and some mythical figures. As I said, Athene was important to me for a while.

R.P. The SOUND of them returns again, we really should do a sound piece. What flowers?

D.C. Flowers? The "& you" poem initially included:

Sometimes there is lavender
and honeysuckle,
or there might be roses
and love-in-the-mist,
or cornflowers,
or poppies and freesias,
and the reddest blood-red tulips,
fields and fields of sunflowers,
tall and radiant and strong,
and there are occasionally
orange trees and mangoes
and wildly effervescing orchids,
or so many roses that the fragrance
makes me weak with so much joy
at the generous extravagance of it all.

R.P. Yes it is, even though it was actaully an image I was trying to avoid. But I can't seem to. Water returned in the last fish piece. It's about things that are in motion, fluid things that change and the contemplative hypnotic effect of the sea. I find it interesting that we talk about surfing the net, it's a ride of fluid space, an exploration of something. The sea opens up these spaces for me. I love walking along a beach during the middle of winter.

D.C. The sea was always a part of my childhood (yours too, I gather?). I think living on a relatively small island ... the sea is constantly present. It is a symbol of dreaming for me. The sea is also a metaphor for the space of my imagination, and for time ... the vast billowing seas of past and future. It becomes "text" because of its seeming endlessness. And, as you say, it's also an excellent way of imagining virtual space.

I think making an imaginative piece out of parts of this narrative could be good. Some characters: a writer, an artist (maybe with those imaginative heads), a child (the little hand), the sea, and some other names: "intuition"; sea creature ... I don't know, but I like the idea of a conversation ... What do you think?

R.P. Could be really quite nice, a screen split into frames and each section in conversation to each other about how they think.

D.C. Yes, that could work very nicely. In my time piece I have the sun talking to time. I love conversations. Virginia Woolf's The Wavesis entirely about 4 or 5 people and the internal dialogues they have with themselves (when together). You never hear what they really say to one another. It's amazing but quite eerie. Very isolated and isolating. I think this piece could do both: ie involve dialogue between the characters, but also have each one's internal musings/thoughts.

I also like the idea of you sitting by the Finnish lake. I might write about that. Can you write a little about what the Polar Circuit did you for your creativity?

R.P. One of the recent things I've realised is that often it's hard to separate creative and work process for personal things. Even if my work often is that personal, the way I work is affected my things happening around me. For me Polar did a number of things. It gave me a bit more confidence to think that what I do is worth while, but I only showed a handful of people what I did. Next time that will be different. I realised that if I keep my cool, I'm actually good a organizing things, but only while I've got my cool That I needed more time, and focus to get work done, and I need to give things more time. I sort of learnt how to write and work with text. And alot more: it open up possibilities like the moo's and also doing things in galleries with electronics. Most importantly the time out of life and away from the time hassles of having to be a certain places at certain times was great. The freedom to work all night if wanted to and not have to be up the next morning. The night was day anyway!

D.C. I'm finding a LOT of peace at the moment. Can't say much more about it just now, as peace is sort of flooding me. Too much explanation might spoil it. On one of our sunny mornings I'd love to go to Mt Wellington, or even just the Signal Station at Mt Nelson for a meeting. Views.

R.P. I was thinking about &you, the final version almost about a moment in time. This sense of a moment of time, is also in your seabed poem. It's something that I think I'm maybe trying to do in my work and I'm attracted to your writing more when it goes towards that direction. I sort of find it easier to visualize and work with I think. What are your thoughts on this?

D.C. Well, I think that I'm beginning to realise that our longer pieces (imaginative and travels) were serendipitous. And I think that beginning with less ambitious pieces is important. If they evolve, that's fine, but I'm a complicated thinker and a writer who likes to embellish, but I think sparseness is quite important for web pieces. I've not read Seabed for a while. I'll go and look at it. Yes, it is a moment, but because of my way of reading intertextually, everything is so intertwined. Words and images resonate continually with other thoughts, poems, ideas, images etc. But, as far as working more efficiently, I think time-grabs is a good idea.

R.P. Well, the other thing is that imaginative and travels are pieces that started quite small. When I was thinking about moments in time, it was more that in your writing there is strong sense of places and time. But not of a narrative or story. What do you say to that ?

D.C. Yes, narratives and stories are not my strong points! It's partly the poet in me, partly that I've always liked stories that leap about, that explore the impossible, imaginative spaces, dreams and so on. I don't know, do you WANT a story?!

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