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

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: http://www.http.uk.net/docs/exhib12/exhibitions12.shtml.

HTTP Gallery is run by furtherfield.org.