I still can’t believe I actually did this. I live in a high-rise apartment and my neighbor, a rather handsome looking artist guy, always seems to have many of these artist friends come visit him. I know he conceptualizes various ideas, making them part of real life. Which sounds cool to me, life and art are just so close now I’ve heard. You know, like that new Internet movement called 'Art-Behaviour'.

He creates like an animal, I now this because I can hear him. I hear almost every noise from next door, those liberating and fulfilled sounds ultimate, creative ecstasy. I have always wondered whom these artists were, who used to do home-based art projects with him, if they were important artists? I just couldn’t believe anyone could have such an incredibly active Art life. I suppose I shouldn’t have been interested in an artist who had been with so many other creative types, but hearing the unbelievable amount of artistic power he gave to each and every one through the thin walls of my apartment I had to find out more.

I shared an elevator one day with him and I seized the opportunity to ask him for some help on the Internet to look at contemporary, critical art sites and lists. He invited me over for a little tutorial, and when he went to get us both a drink I checked the bookmarks on his computer and found out that he frequented Rhizome. He caught me looking at it and I felt like I was invading his privacy and wanted to hide and crawl under the sofa. He was very cool about it though, and asked me if I had ever been to this web site and list before? I told him no, not knowing what it was about, and he smiled and said I should try it. I got up the courage to ask if it was where he got all his contacts from, and he confidently said that 60% of all the artists he has explored imaginative projects with are from there. I couldn’t believe he told me that, and I can’t imagine why I asked this yet I did, I softly asked if I could be included in the other 40%. Without a word we moved to the couch, and he began to draw me. I’d never done a casual creative encounter before but I felt like I knew him intimately having listened to him so many times before through the walls.

Before I knew it I was drawing his cyber coat, hanging behind the door, all black and made out of leather. And then he explored many playful and fluid ideas with me. It was even better than I imagined and I’m sure that the neighbors 3 flats down heard my well thought out verbal concepts, as we both explored together primal art (yet critically informed) expressions, a kind of performance that lets one blurt out moans. Maybe I will try Rhizome my self, if all the artists explore ideas as adventurously like this then it’s something worth checking into.