Networked_Performance

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  Second Life - Becoming Dragon - Micha Cardenas

  Posted: 31-December-2008, 8:07pm CET by jo

  [www.youtube.com]

  “Micha Cardenas is a 31-year-old man taking hormones to become a woman. So, it’s not surprising perhaps that Cardenas views the boundaries of gender as being somewhat fluid and has questions about what it means to be male and/or female.

  But what if the question isn’t merely gender identity, but an issue of species? What if one felt wrongly trapped inside their human body, preferring instead to be a cat? Or a lizard? Or some sort of unknown alien life form?

  ?People are now undergoing all sorts of extreme body modifications,? said Cardenas, a visual arts student at UC San Diego. ?They’re getting scales tattooed all over their bodies, horns implanted on their heads, tongues forked. It seems crazy right now, but I wonder how far we are from actually being able to change species. And if we could, what would that be like??

  To find out, Cardenas recently spent 365 consecutive hours in Second Life, an Internet-based, three-dimensional virtual world where human users assume digitized alter egos called avatars of any gender or species, real and unreal…” Continue reading Online-world immersion probes ‘possibilities of transformation’ - Immersion conversion by Scott LaFee, The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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  Uncertainty About Our Survival

  Posted: 31-December-2008, 9:12pm CET by jo

  To those of you who have already contributed to our fundraising campaign, thank you. We are deeply grateful.

  As we look at 2009, there is real uncertainty about our organization?s survival. Faced with rapidly declining funds, we must either require a membership fee — thereby blocking public access to our sites; or we must take them all offline: Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review, and New American Radio.

  We do not wish to do either.

  At this point our only hope is that those of you who have not yet contributed to our Campaign for Sustainability will decide to do so.

  Networked_Performance alone is accessed by 32,000 unique visitors per month; many of you return three or more times. If each of you were to give $5.00, we could continue to make our sites freely available.

  Please act now. Pay via PayPal on the Turbulence homepage or mail a check to:

  New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
  124 Bourne Street
  Roslindale
  MA 02131

  Thanks.

  Helen and Jo

  The following interview with Salvatore Iaconesi and penelope.di.pixel, hosted on artsblog.it, details our understanding and experience of new media arts funding in the U.S. It is is the first in a series of interviews that analyze some of the issues of the rising financial crisis. Marc Garrett of Furtherfield and Simona Lodi of Torino Share Festival have also been interviewed. Go
  here or here, or read below:

  Helen Thorington, Jo-Anne Green and Turbulence.org: let?s begin with a short introduction for the reader?

  New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA) was founded in 1981? almost 28 years ago. At that time and until 1998, it commissioned artists to create original work for the public radio system (now some 797 public stations across the country). Our series, New American Radio (NAR), was a weekly national series which, in hindsight, was probably better known among radio art enthusiasts in Europe (thanks to the efforts of its then associate director, Regine Beyer) than in the US, where bottom line thinking (does this program bring in enough money?) had already infected the public system.

  Note: In the United States, the public radio and television systems are not supported by annual license fees. Touted as commercial free, a small percentage of their budgets come from the federal government; the remainder from corporate ?sponsors?, private foundation grants, individual donations and underwriting spots (resembling advertisements on commercial broadcasting).

  Because of public radio?s dependent status, New American Radio (1987-1998) was classified early on as ?minority programming? (translation: it didn?t have a large, well-to-do audience that donated substantially to the broadcasting stations); over the years the number of stations airing the programs declined; money became scarce; and in 1998 we let it go. 300 works from the series are now archived in Wesleyan University?s World Music Archive in Connecticut; 140 works are available for audition on the New American Radio.

  In anticipation of NAR?s end, we extended the organizations mandate to include commissioning artists to create new work (net/web art) for the Internet, and in early 1996, launched the Turbulence website [turbulence.org).] Funded by government and private foundations, Turbulence, like NAR, has been free to the public since its inception.

  In 2002 Jo-Anne Green joined the organization as co-director. It is to her that we owe the studios, spotlight, and guest curator?s sections and ? of even greater significance today ? the research and blogging that makes possible the world-famous Networked_Performance blog, and (with Helen and Peter Traub) Networked_Music_Review. She also started Upgrade! Boston, one of 32 nodes comprising Upgrade! International. Jo-Anne?s most recent Turbulence project is ?Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)?.

  NRPA is also responsible for co-organizing and co-presenting: the annual ?Floating Points? speaker series on networked art at Emerson College in Boston, MA; a series of symposia on ?Programmable Media? at Pace University in New York City; and several exceptional exhibitions, including ?Mixed Realities?, which explored the convergence ? through cyberspace ? of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks.

  During these months Europe began confronting the financial crisis that is spreading out from american markets: what are the characteristics of this crisis in the USA and which are the most clearly visible damages and repercussions, starting from your direct experience in Turbulence?

  First a little history:

  The United States? support for the arts declined dramatically sixteen years ago, when right wing politicians objected to tax payer money being granted to performance artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes. The Republican Party legislated that the federal arts funding agency could no longer provide grants to individual artists; during the Clinton administration, they attempted to abolish the agency altogether.

  The following details a part of the context in which we live today.

  A little over a year ago, the Guardian reported that Arts Council England funding would increase from £417m (2007) to £467m in 2010-11. Astonished by this news, we immediately compared these figures with those of our own federal agency, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). We found that the 2007 NEA appropriation was $125 million (£61m) for a population of over 300 million. Arts Council England?s 2007 appropriation of £417m ($855 million) was for a population of 61 million.

  Intrigued by the post on Networked_Music_Review, a blogger by the name of Robin took the exercise one step further. He added Ireland and Canada to the comparison and created a chart [noisetheatre.blogspot.com] The results in ? per person: US: .286 Canada: 3.96 UK: 9.86 Ireland: 18.6. Robin concluded ?So, in the United States they?ll flip you a quarter and say ?good luck?, in the UK you?ll get a tenner, but in Ireland each person has 19 euros of their tax money put towards the arts.?

  But there is more.

  In his first interview on ?Meet the Press? since winning the election, President-elect Barack Obama discussed his plans to make an impact through arts and culture at the White House, saying that they are ?thinking about the diversity of our culture and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that?s America.? While this support is unprecedented, the tapestry to which it refers is conspicuously lacking in any but traditional forms.

  We write this because it underlines an additional two-fold problem for us ? one that existed here before the economic crisis occurred.

  1) Funding organizations are largely comprised of staff ? whose backgrounds are in the traditional arts ? who bring together panels largely comprised of individuals with backgrounds in the traditional arts. For two years in a row now, Turbulence has gone unfunded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) because the panelists have not known how to navigate a website. Each year we write more detailed instructions: do this, do that?look for this, look for that. Each year the Endowment asks us to do still more. This year?s suggestion: make a film of one of us navigating through the proposed artist?s site, so panelists can view the work in a traditional form (video).

  2) Creative practice on the Internet has blurred distinctions between one form of practice and another. Nima Motamedi developed ?Keep in Touch? and ?Stay in Touch? as part of his thesis at Simon Frasier University (Vancouver, BC); he calls it research, not art. Martin Wattenberg divides his work into two categories: art and research. Have a look and see if you can tell the difference. This ongoing convergence, which we delight in, does nothing but baffle the uninitiated. The work is not art when viewed through their perceptually backward-looking eyes. Or, more simply put, as Australian friend Cass Meers writes, ?there is a lag between new modes of practice and the implementation of new systems that can support this practice.? That lag is very much in evidence here in the US.

  When you add the current economic crisis to these pre-existing conditions, you have to know that only serious financial trouble awaits the unaffiliated, non-institutionalized, not-for-profit with a mandate to commission creative work for the Internet, and hybrid work with a presence both on the net and in physical space and/or in virtual worlds.

  This came in a recent email from one of Turbulence?s funders: ?The trust has lost a huge amount of money, and I cannot be sure there will be funds for the arts this year. I?ll let you know.?

  Other funders are also waiting. In New York State where arts organizations are many and united in securing support for their activities, the Governor proposed eliminating the remainder of the New York State Council on the Arts? 2008 budget; in less than 72 hours 14,000+ emails were sent to the Governor and Legislators. The Governor?s proposal has remained unchanged.

  What about the 2009 budget? No one knows for sure. A 20% cut in grant dollars has been proposed for the upcoming budget, starting April 1, 2009, but with the economic situation worsening every day, the cut may be a good deal more. Either way, those of us who have relied on it for some part of our operating support will find ourselves operating on much less - or out of luck altogether. At best NRPA can expect $12,000 from this source to meet the expenses of its staff and its operating costs for a year.

  We foresee 2-5 hard years ahead in which both of us will have to find other sources of income to survive. We are both looking for work now.

  Paradoxes: while we question ourselves about the crisis, a painting by Kostabi manages to get a 3 million euros price tag (and it is also not the most sensational case, either). Is the Art System really in a crisis?

  With regard to your question about the art system; NRPA, unlike some arts organizations and artists, is less interested in being a part of the ?artworld? (aka the art market) than in acknowledging innovation as an emergent property of digital networks and commissioning creative people from the truly impressive numbers participating in new media practice today.

  The artworld reflects older and more accepted cultural hierarchies and values. Through Sotherby?s, Christie?s and high-end galleries, it caters to the wealthiest individuals who are the least affected by recessions. These individuals buy art because of its investment value; some because of the celebrity status of the artist (often, they go hand-in-hand). The artmarket has little to do with art; for it, art is just another commodity to be bought and sold at maximum profit.

  New Media Art breaks copyright rules, erases the classical concept of ?authorship?, is hardly collectable and, in general, it shows a somewhat ?genetic? incompatibility towards reproduction/exhibition in classical museum and gallery contexts: is there a connection between these new ways of producing art and the crisi? Can the research on new media art have a heuristic role in the process of understanding and handling the crisi itself?

  As you say: New Media Art breaks copyright rules, erases the classical concept of ?authorship?, is hardly collectable and, in general, shows a somewhat ?genetic? incompatibility towards reproduction/exhibition in classical museum and gallery contexts.?

  But there is no causal connection of which we are aware between the changing landscape wrought by new media and the financial crisis. There is, however, a definite connection between the explosion of online content, the availability of media publishing platforms, music-making platforms, video publishing platforms, the hundreds of millions who are uploading and downloading video, audio and photographs all the time ? and the future of what we call ?art?.

  Crisis or possibility? What tools can we use to confront it?

  As Clay Shirky said in Here Comes Everybody, ?Where a particular capability [such as creative production] moves from a group of professionals [call them artists] to become embedded in society itself, ubiquitously, available to a majority of citizens, [as the ability to produce and distribute one?s own creative work is now available to all with a computer and access to the Internet], you can expect a major change in the status of the profession.? (Shirky was writing about newspaper journalism)

  In the Internet we have a many-to-many technology that allows us all to exercise our imaginations in a very public way; in time the exclusiveness and elitism that has shaped the artworld must pass away.

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  Performance, Technology, & Science

  Posted: 30-December-2008, 7:26pm CET by jo

  Performance, Technology, & Science by Johannes Birringer: This ground-breaking work of scholarship explores convergences between performance and science through an investigation of new technologies that drive computer-mediated, interactive art. In tracing the evolution of digital performance within a particular history of engineering and theatre that now expands to a wide range of practices in dance, design, architecture, fashion, games, music, robotics, telematic performance, and “post-production”-theatre, the author focuses on interactive performance, installation and Internet art.

  Internationally known practitioners and their works are introduced to formulate provocative ideas on computation, complexity, emergence and self-organizing systems in contemporary performance which are inspired by biology and biotechnology. Wide-ranging and richly illustrated essays uncover shifts that have occurred globally in the aesthetic understanding of performance within computer-augmented virtual and networked environments.

  The work of key artists, theatre/dance companies, and laboratories demonstrates how scientific concepts have influenced digital performance, and how performance relates to neuroscience, biology and the life sciences. Challenging common assumptions about embodiment and the digital, this study addresses how artists use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sensing technologies not only to enhance the range of expression and visualization, but to bridge the gap between the work and its user.

  Johannes Birringer is a choreographer and media artist; he directs the Centre for Contemporary and Digital Performance at Brunel University, West London. He is author of Theatre, Theory, Postmodernism; Media and Performance: along the border; Performance on the Edge: Transformations of Culture, and co-editor of Dance and Cognition.

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  Hacking at Random [Vierhouten]

  Posted: 30-December-2008, 7:35pm CET by jo

  Hacking at Random (HAR2009) — International Technology & Security Conference :: August 13-16, 2009 :: near Vierhouten, The Netherlands :: Call for Papers - Deadline: May 1, 2009.

  From the ancient days long before the first wayback-machine snapshot, hackers have a track record for appropriating technology that was meant for something completely different and putting it to alternative uses. And every four years since 1989, the international hacker community has descended upon The Netherlands in great numbers for a conference that focuses on contemporary and future issues surrounding technology and its social and political consequences. One reason that these conferences have been successful is the wide range of participants: from students, amateurs and aficionados to researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs who are recognized as some of the best in their respective fields.

  The atmosphere is open, friendly and relaxed, the scope of subjects insanely wide, the average level of knowledge high. The venue is always buzzing with energy, ideas and projects. The New York Times described the 1997 edition as ?Woodstock for Hackers?. We will gladly honor that legacy.

  This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of this event with a new installment: Hacking at Random. HAR wants to offer presentations that feature the joy of hacking. That means hardcore hacking and science for its own sake. HAR is soliciting abstracts from anybody who is interested in giving a talk, in doing a workshop or in otherwise presenting their work.

  When this series of conferences started twenty years ago, the net was new and unexplored terrain where only the bold dared to tread, and where legislation and regulation were absent. That has changed. Today, virtually every household in the Western world has access and many analogue services are being relocated to the internet, reinventing themselves while doing so, and thereby simultaneously making internet even more of a commodity and an indispensable part of our daily lives. Internet has become ubiquitous, all pervasive, huge and crowded. Because of this, new questions are becoming increasingly important: questions about governance, sustainability, dying analogue media, ownership of data and content, shortage of IP space and energy, censorship, filtering, data trails, data breaches, security, surveillance ? to mention but a few.

  As the world is more and more defined in terms of the technology of the internet, the once obscure political freedom-fights that hackers were involved in, have truly reached center stage. The next few years are about defending fundamental freedoms, and we better step to it, because nobody is going to do it for us.

  TOPICS AND TRACKS

  We have chosen three main tracks for HAR: subjects that we think are of prime (future) importance. Of course, not all talks and workshops can be fitted within these tracks, nor is that our intention. If you have an unrelated but interesting project, don?t hesitate to propose it. Actually, the only thing we?ll really be strict in is that _all_ talks and workshops should definitely be interesting and knowledgeable, hopefully be groundbreaking, and possibly, fun. We want to broaden your and our own horizons, so not many restrictions apply - not even our own. And it goes without saying that any other smart weird stuff is fine, provided it makes us go ?wow!? That having been said, the three tracks that we have chosen are:

  1. Dealing with data (DD)

  We live in a society that gorges itself on data. We check and intercept more data and retain them for a longer period, we base individual interventions on statistics, we amass data in centralized, national databases, and more and more, we ?mislay? these data and create data breaches. Often, data is used outside its original scope: the 11 million files that the Brits have by now amassed on their children in order to ?assist? child welfare, will be open to the police looking for ?evidence?.

  Some courts are however getting fed up. Germany has decided that home computers are indeed private and that the EU data retention law is far too wide in its scope: only when there?s actual suspicion against a person his or her traffic data may be retained. The European court has ruled that the Brits ? and hence, other EU countries ? cannot keep people?s DNA in a database unless they have been convicted.

  In this track, we will discuss cutting edge security aspects as well as their political implications: whose property is a digital trace, should data have a built-in expiry date, how to counteract identity theft, ideas about ?data hygiene? and how we can make governmental and company data mining more transparent or more restrained. This track ranges from computer security to hacking ?safe? chip cards, from data mining to data breaches, from lawful to unlawful interception, from amassing data to data retention, from freakonomics to numerati.

  2. Decentralization (DeCent)

  Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, most technologies have been moving towards centralization using economies of scale to create profits. The result of large centralized technologies has been concentrated power in the hands of fewer individuals with control over large amounts of cash to pay for expensive factories and infrastructure. Modern organizations like nation-states and multinationals mimic this centralization trend.

  Many new technologies however are moving in the opposite direction. Cheap home computers and affordable connectivity to a global (but decentralized) network have made individuals and communities the center of creativity again. Other fields of technology that are decentralizing are energy and manufacturing (think solar and 3d-printing). We?d like to hear cool ideas about what this could mean for all of us and for the societies that we live in. Are 200 euro laptops, wifi and 3d-printers the beginning of the end of multinationals and the nation state? Does the spreading of technology give power to the people, atom bombs to the terrorists, or both? We don?t know what will happen but maybe you do. If so, we?d like to hear from you.

  If you have a 3d-printer, a solar powered vehicle or a fusion-powered coffee machine, we?d like you to show your stuff and tell your tale. You will however be asked to leave your nuclear weapons at the entrance.

  3. People and politics (PNP)

  We live in the proverbial ?interesting times?: the world is running out of oil, the climate?s all weird, geopolitical power is shifting and decentralization has taken off the gloves. We?d like to think our community holds some small part of the clues needed to understand today?s world. Hackers have traditionally used these events to help others to become better equipped to go out and make some changes in the way the world works.

  This event has in the past had a large number of presentations that bridged between technology, activism, digital rights, privacy, politics and citizenship, and this edition will be no different. If your presentation can help others to become more aware or (better) more equipped and more effective in these fields, please tell us.

  Again, these ideas are by no means restrictive. If you have a fantastic story to share about agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, about nanocomputing or about biotechnology, please submit your paper. Bear in mind that those attending HAR are technophiles and love talks in which technology - or the politics of technology ? is key. Also, if you know of someone whom you think should be present at HAR2009, ask them to submit an abstract, or inform us of their name and subject.

  DEADLINES
  Abstracts should be submitted to our paper submission system on [https:]] and are due May 1st, 2009.

  We will inform you about our acceptance or rejection of your abstract before June 1st, 2009.

  General information about HAR2009 can be found on www.har2009.org and wiki.har2009.org.

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  Plutopia: Living Systems Theory [Austin]

  Posted: 30-December-2008, 7:44pm CET by jo

  9th Annual EFF-Austin SXSWi Party — Plutopia: Living Systems Theory :: March 16, 2009 :: Austin, Texas :: Call for Artists — Deadline for Intent to Submit: January 15, 2009.

  This year at SXSW Interactive the Plutopia Party will focus on Living Systems Theory.� We are looking for art in all media that underscores the Integrated and Interconnected nature of all Living Systems from Biological and Cybernetic Organisms to Socio-cultural Networks and International Organizations.

  We seek to explore: The Biological Substrata of Technology :: Human Machine Interfaces :: Biological and Self-Perpetuating Living Art
  Viewer Interactive Experiences
  Reproduction and Recycling
  Holism and Emergence
  Convergence and Divergence
  Interdisciplinary Analysis
  Biological Metaphors for Technological Innovations
  From Fiber to Cyber
  Complexity and Reductionism

  Artists are responsible for transport, installation, removal and sponsorship of their own art. Stipends are not available. Promotional space at the event for sales and artist info will be available. As an official SXSW Interactive After-Party we are offering an outstanding opportunity to display your art to the International Tech, Film and Music Communities.

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  Network Cultures Winter Camp [Amsterdam]

  Posted: 30-December-2008, 11:53pm CET by jo

  Upgrade! International has been invited to participate in Network Cultures Winter Camp, an event organized by the Institute of Network Cultures that will take place from March 3-7, 2009 in Amsterdam. The other participants are Blender Foundation, Bricolabs, Dyne.org, Edufactory, Floss Manuals, freeDimensional network, Genderchangers, MyCreativity, and Planetart.

  When a network settles down, and is not so new anymore, it can be quite a challenge to keep it?s activity level. Should a network then transform into a so-called ?organized network?? Organizing a network does not necessarily mean decreasing the level of spontaneity to make way for rules and hierarchy: it can provide a place for sustainable knowledge sharing and production. As Ned Rossiter argues in his book Organized Networks (2006), face-to-face meetings are crucial ?if the network is to maintain momentum, revitalize energy, consolidate old friendships and discover new ones, recast ideas, undertake further planning activities, and so on.? Network Cultures Winter Camp is therefore meant for those networks and (potential) network members that need support to gather in real life, conspire, discuss and make the necessary steps forward. Winter Camp does not have an (academic) educational or training component, but there is a lot to learn.

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  Interviewing the crisis

  Posted: 31-December-2008, 12:10am CET by jo

  [Image: 29, the symphony, by Luca Bertini] Interviewing the crisis is a series of articles hosted on artsblog.it in which Salvatore Iaconesi and penelope.di.pixel analyze some of the issues of the rising financial crisis through a sequence of reports and interviews.

  The project starts out with an introduction. The first interview is with Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green of Turbulence.org. Next will be Marc Garrett of Furtherfield, followed by Simona Lodi of Torino Share Festival.

  The focus is on the crisis? impact on art and, specifically, on new media art disciplines, organizations, artists. We wanted to research on the models involved. People dealing with art tend to work in dramatically different ways: public funding, art market, art systems, communication and marketing oriented practices. [via]

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  @: Call for Works

  Posted: 31-December-2008, 12:43am CET by jo

  @ :: Call for Works — Deadline: January 26, 2009.

  Concurrent with the New Media Caucus panel Space: The New Frontier at the National CAA 2009, @ is an exhibition that examines space and site. With simultaneous locations in Los Angeles and Second Life (SL), @ challenges artists to consider place & placelessness from within the context of networked culture.

  The physical gallery space will be replicated within SL, featuring an actual window between the virtual and real worlds to observe and be observed. The exhibition space will feature a floor-to-ceiling projection and a streaming video camera. This wall will serve as the interface between the Real Life (RL) in the gallery and its replication in Second Life.

  The intent for @ is to exploit the philosophically rich mirroring between RL and SL, as well as the paradoxical condition of being the observer and observed.

  CALL FOR WORKS:

  Three aspects to the show will be curated separately but are expected to connect conceptually:

  1) installation in RL: a heterotopic space - “other space” or “alt space”? that contains the projection from SL and that can be modeled in SL. The artist is not responsible for creating the SL model.

  2) video screenings: works concerning space and place vis-à-vis RL and SL. These works will be screened in an adjacent space in RL and streamed in SL

  3) works based in SL that may cross RL boundaries. Objects and performances originating in SL that consider and make use of the synergistic interplay of RL/SL localities. Work may exist in either or both spaces.

  Exhibition site: Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, and Seventh Eye in Second Life.

  Installation will take place at the end of February

  Formats:

  - Works may be in any medium. ( submissions must be web links)
  - Physical works MAY be reproduced in the SL space.
  - Please consider the exhibition context and propose new and existing works that fit this hybrid space.
  - Links to high compression downloadable quicktime are recommended, suggested length is 3-5 minutes.
  - The gallery is approximately 20′ x 60′ (detailed diagram available upon request)

  Please send proposals or documentation links to gallery [at] arsvirtua.com

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  Architecture of Association [Paris]

  Posted: 19-December-2008, 8:18pm CET by jo

  Daniel C. Howe & Bill Seaman exhibit the Architecture of Association, as part of Dans la Nuit, des Images at Grand Palais in Paris :: December 18, 2008 - January 1, 2009.

  A large-scale generative installation modelling human associative processes in diverse media, the Architecture of Association (AoA) algorithmically generates and combines fragments of video, text, and sound in real-time via a cluster of networked computers and databases. While a smaller version of the AoA premiered in August at the Museum of Image and Sound in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the installation at the Grand Palais will be the first full-size installation, spanning over 150 sq feet of high-definition monitors.

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  Doron Golan + Michael Szpakowski [London]

  Posted: 19-December-2008, 8:53pm CET by jo

  Whereof">[http.uk.net] one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent — Doron Golan and Michael Szpakowski :: January 16 - March 1, 2009 :: HTTP">[http.uk.net] Gallery, Unit A2, Arena Design Centre, 71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY (directions">[http.uk.net] )

  Collaboration is working together. Can two people work together without ever having met? Doron Golan and Michael Szpakowski demonstrates that they can… The exhibition takes its title from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by the philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein. It explores a collaboration between two artists across geographical distance through the ineffable language of image.

  Israeli video artist and filmmaker Doron Golan and British artist, composer and educator Michael Szpakowski both make digital films, which they share through websites and email lists, exploring the mystery of everyday life and of being a human in this place and time. Over the years, the two artists have developed a dialogue and friendship through the exchange of their work. Since 2005 they have collaborated to found and curate DVblog.org, a groundbreaking early platform for art films on the Internet. And yet they’ve never met face to face.

  HTTP Gallery in North London is pleased to host the first meeting between Golan and Szpakowski and their art, in real space. Making their online collaborative process physical, the central installation has three elements: a new silent film by each of the artists with a new musical composition by Szpakowski. Bearing their shared sympathies in mind, the artists have independently determined the length and subjects of their films. As a result, the correspondences and resonances between the works are as yet unknown, and will change constantly. The collaborative installation will be accompanied by elements of their independent practices, including a new installation by Szpakowski utilising video and silver birch branches and a selection of Golan’s recent videos, engaging with elements of life in the Middle East and his native Israel, to which he has returned after many years living in New York City.

  HTTP Gallery based near North London’s thriving Green Lanes area is London’s first dedicated gallery for networked and new media art. Working with artists from around the world, HTTP provides experimental approaches to exhibiting artworks simultaneously in physical and virtual space, and for online projects that explore participative and collaborative art practice. Projects on DVD, real-time, webcast, software art and live art also play a role in their curatorial work.

  Past Exhibitions: [www.http.uk.net]">[http.uk.net] .

  HTTP Gallery is run by furtherfield.org.