Teletaxi

Teletaxi was a mobile site responsive locative media art project installed in Toronto and Montreal taxicabs.  The taxi was outfitted with an interactive touchscreen that displayed video, animations, and games triggered by an onboard GPS receiver which allowed for a constant relationship between the media artworks and the urban area immediately outside the taxi.

Montreal Teletaxi: Interval
Exhibited as part of Teletaxi in Montreal, Interval is an exploration of two historically significant Montreal sites; an abandoned tramway tunnel that linked two regions separated by the Lachine Canal, and a three block stretch of Rue St. Jacque where Canada’s first banks and mercantile houses still stand. Capturing traces of physical and emotional states specific to each location the videos blend footage shot during repeated visits to each site over a 6 month period. From an underground utilitarian space transformed by decay and graffiti to architectural details of highly ornamental Romaneque stone reliefs symbolic of the opulence of 19th century capitalism, Michael Alstad's Interval temporarily reveals hidden and overlooked urban spaces lying immediately under and above the sight-line of the taxi passenger while navigating through the two mapped locations.

Toronto Teletaxi:Multiple Architectures Platform
MAP is an ongoing series of videos/animations that examine the mutation of specific urban sites in Toronto documented over multiple time frames and perspectives. Dundas Square was launched in 2003 as an urban regeneration project in downtown Toronto. In two short years the block was transformed from an area that housed a diverse array of closely packed independently owned establishments, street vendors and dollar stores to an open area containing a spectacle of media towers, multinational retail outlets, video billboards and surveillance cameras. Alstad's animation combines footage gathered over a one year period – a montage of photography, video, blueprints, 3d renderings and ‘use scenario’ schematics.

Produced by Year Zero One, Teletaxi was an offsite project of Dare-Dare's Dis/Location festival in Montreal and the Tranz Tech Media Art Biennial in Toronto.