The hills are alive with the collaborative spirit this season, and artists find themselves taking a "better together" approach for all kinds of reasons: moral support, complementary skill sets, the greater efficiency of 12 hands compared to two. … Here are just a few venues where you can find examples of collaboration at work.

• University of Tampa visual art professor Lew Harris and music professor Terry Mohn have combined their talents in unique performance pieces for 25 years. From 7 to 9 p.m. on Fri., Feb. 9, as part of Electronics Alive IV, a UT biennial exhibit devoted to computer-based art, they'll showcase their latest work, a kind of video and musical jam session. Harris, whose digitally manipulated photographs are also on display in the show, uses a video switcher to mix edited footage with a live camera feed while Mohn plays clarinet or saxophone over a self-accompaniment of recorded tracks. Much of the work in Electronics Alive, from computer animation to interactive programs, required a team approach to deal with complex technology, said curator Dorothy Cowden.

• In Controlled Burn at Bleu Acier, husband-and-wife team Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey take a decidedly less technical approach. Recent works inspired by a residency in rural Oregon juxtapose abstract video of the surrounding forests with drawings created by manipulating carbon-based inks with only the artists' breath. The exhibit's title — an ironic reference to a blaze purposely set by authorities to rejuvenate the forest that burned out of control and devastated the area a year before their visit — also serves as a metaphor for relinquishing control in the collaborative process. "I think our work is … about editing and telling the other person when that piece is done and taking it away," says Voshardt. "When you work by yourself, you get caught in a rut. It's hard to know when to quit."

• The Art Guys, Houston-based duo Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, who are the subjects of a mini-retrospective at the Tampa Museum of Art, recently called on local artist collective Experimental Skeleton for some help. With long-distance supervision from the pair, ES artists created a sentence" made of illuminated vintage suitcases with words cut into them that snakes around the inside of the old Union Train Station Baggage Claim Building where nonprofit art space Flight 19 is located. Teamwork was "the only way in which it would have been possible," said curator Jade Dellinger.

Electronics Alive IV, Jan. 22-Feb. 22, University of Tampa Scarfone/Hartley Gallery, 813-253-6217; Controlled Burn, Feb. 10-March 10, Bleu Acier, Inc., Tampa, 813-272-9746; The Art Guys: Valise Voyage, Jan. 20-April 15, Flight 19, Tampa, 813-247-2050.

Mix it up: Spring arts

What to watch for

This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2007.