Manifesto

A Close Conspiracy is a creative correspondence. It is a weekly epistolary creative game of tag. Like all conspiracies, it is characterized by: intrigue, collaboration, goal-oriented scheming, secrecy and subversion. While there is subterfuge and cunning in all true conspiracies, there is also an element openness between those involved. Participants are encouraged to share and mine their latest obsessions and desires. Your hidden thoughts and musings could spur a fellow conspirator to make something they had never imagined. The overreaching goal of this clandestine and curated correspondence it to spark, ignite, and  keep the creative flames of fellow conspirators burning brightly and fiercely.

Begun in January 2013, it consists of weekly "briefs" created alternatively by each conspirator. The content of these briefs is purposely vague from the outset: the goal of each brief is to turn curiosity from a passive activity into a creatively active one. The brief is considered a success when both parties fulfill it. Each brief should and must build on previous briefs: The Conspiracy requires a dialectic in order to maximize inspiration and create a cumulative creative conversation whose textures deepen as the weeks progress. 

Conspirators can respond to a brief in any way they see fit and fitting. A sentence, a poem, a haiku, a photograph, a collage, a rant, a list, a fully rendered oil painting, or a video of an interpretive dance (dancing and filming of dancing is deeply encouraged) or in a more familiar territory of the included conspirators---with some kind of story or narrative. 

Plumbing and mining unchartered territories is what true conspirators do. Close Conspirators have an invisible tattoo on their inner arms which says, (most likely in Mandarin): GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. In Madarin it looks like this: :走出自己的安乐窝

A Close Conspiracy is not to be confused with the used furniture store "Yesterday's Muse," nor with the arts quarterly "Drop Shot," which, while worthy concerns in their own rite, are neither the subject nor the content of this endeavor. Neither do we have any affiliation with the Swedish eco toy shop, "aMUSEments" or the famed Dumbo pantyhose joint, "Blue Stockings." By all means shop where you will. Conspirators may or may not have partaken of these companies wares.