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October 27, 2004

A Taxi Tour of Site-Specific Video

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Teletaxi

A project by the Year Zero One collective, Teletaxi is a site-specific media art exhibition in a taxicab. The taxi is outfitted with an interactive touch screen that displays video, animations, music, and information triggered by an onboard GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver which allows the displayed artwork to change depending on where the taxi is in the city. With the combination of the media/gps technology, the mobile environment and the passenger/audience inside the cab – the seven artists in teletaxi are offered a unique set of possibilities for showing their work - both technically and thematically.

Teletaxi exposed interactive media art to a normally passive audience, by presenting works that explore notions of intimacy, mapping, subterranean space, simulated cities, information architecture, data-visualisation, public interventions, surveillance and psychogeography.

Of note is David Jhave Johnston's project, Gridlock, which was included in the first public presentation of Teletaxi. Gridlock treats GPS as a number, which may be changing or not changing, rather than a number that refers to a location. Therefore, when the number does not change for a period of x seconds, the taxi is not moving, and there is a possibility that you are stuck in traffic. The Gridlock piece is triggered by this lack of movement, and offers a Flash-based game for frustrated taxi passengers. (Posted by Michelle Kasprzak)

Posted by at October 27, 2004 01:07 AM

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