Draft:Michael Alstad

In the 1990s, Alstad co-founded the Symbiosis Collective, an artist-led group that produced a series of site-specific exhibitions in Toronto examining relationships between architecture, history, and urban space. ^{[1] [2][3]}

In 1998, Alstad initiated The Hoarding Project, a collaborative public art initiative in Toronto that transformed construction hoardings at the Festival Hall redevelopment site into temporary exhibition spaces. Artworks were installed within the enclosed structure of the hoarding and viewed through small peepholes. For the project, he created On Stage: The Barracks, a scale model installation referencing a former bathhouse located across from the site, one of the locations associated with the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids. The work drew on archival research and consultation with local stakeholders to address relationships between urban redevelopment, memory, and queer cultural history.^[4][5]

In 1998, he presented the solo exhibition The Last Supper at Mercer Union in Toronto. The installation consisted of a prison dining table and custom made plates depicting the final meals of individuals executed for capital crimes, addressing themes of mortality and human dignity.^{[6] [7]}

During this period, Alstad also developed early internet-based artworks associated with the emergence of net.art, including the interactive works Control/Mutate and Choice Maps, which examined biotechnology, user interaction, surveillance and algorithmic profiling within networked environments.^{[8][9] [10][11]}

In 1996, Alstad co-founded the digital arts organization Year Zero One with artist Camille Turner. The collective produced and curated early internet-based art and networked exhibitions during the emergence of net.art in the late 1990s, in the same period as initiatives such as Rhizome, Ada'web, and Turbulence that supported the development of net-based art practices internationally.^[12][13]

Alstad has curated and produced media art projects for public and urban screens, focusing on the relationship between moving images, architecture, and public space.

The Transmedia urban screens project was a series of three exhibitions presented on public screens in Toronto over a six-year period beginning in 2000. Conceived by Alstad and produced by the Year Zero One collective, the project explored the use of urban display technologies as platforms for digital and networked art. A selection of works from the Transmedia series, curated by Michelle Kasprzak, was later presented internationally at festivals including the Manchester Urban Screens festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam.^{[14] [15] [16] [17][18]}

From 2007 to 2008, Alstad produced and curated Terminal Zero One through the artist collective Year Zero One, a digital media exhibition presented at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The project consisted of five interactive artworks displayed on a custom-built media kiosk designed by the Toronto-based design studio WIDE. Installed within Terminal 1, the exhibition explored themes related to air travel, surveillance, and networked information and received coverage in major Canadian newspapers. ^{[19] [20] [21] [22]}

In 2012, Alstad created Liquid Cohesion, an interactive video installation presented during Nuit Blanche in Toronto. The site-specific projection transformed a public plaza water feature into an immersive aquatic environment, using motion tracking and sound to generate responsive animations that simulated swarm behavior and ecological systems. Installed within the city’s financial district, the work explored relationships between human movement, urban space, and natural processes through participatory interaction.^[23]

In addition to large-scale projection and public art commissions, Alstad has developed location-based digital media projects that extend storytelling into urban space through mobile technologies and interactive mapping. Among these works is Queerstory, a mobile application and web platform documenting significant sites in Toronto’s LGBTQ history through short documentary videos, archival materials, and geolocation technologies, developed through extended archival research conducted in 2023 at The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives in Toronto.^{[24][25][26][27][28]}

Alstad was also a key creator of TXTilecity, an interactive mobile and web-based project produced with the Textile Museum of Canada that maps stories related to Toronto’s textile industry and urban development through multimedia content linked to specific locations across the city.^{[29] [30]}

Other public media projects include:

• Teletaxi (2003–2004), a mobile interactive exhibition in a taxicab in Toronto and Montreal
• Manholes (2007), a site-responsive animation projected onto a downtown sidewalk during Nuit Blanche
• Toronto Rooftops (2010), a permanent public artwork for the Toronto Transit Commission

These works explore the use of digital media in public space and the integration of art into everyday urban infrastructure.

Environmental systems, endangered species, and post-industrial landscapes are recurring themes in Alstad’s practice.

In 1996, Alstad participated in the group exhibition UnHumanKind: Paradoxes of Speciesism at A Space Gallery in Toronto, which examined ethical and philosophical questions surrounding human relationships with animals and non-human species.^[31][32][33]

In 2002, Alstad created the site-responsive works trans_plant and ICH LIEBE DICH (I LOVE YOU TOO) for the exhibition Helden der Arbeit at an abandoned cable factory in the Oberschöneweide industrial district of Berlin. The work consisted of living plant materials cultivated along concrete structures within the site, referencing ecological regeneration in post-industrial environments. On a concrete bank on the River Spree beside the industrial site, Alstad painted the phrase "I love you too" in response to the German words "ich liebe dich" ("I love you") painted on the opposite bank.^[34]

The installation Territories (2003), exhibited at Cambridge Art Galleries in Ontario, incorporated a life-sized digital image of a polar bear derived from endangered species data. The image was divided into hundreds of sections and sealed into individual plastic bags, which were connected to reconstruct the animal form. Suspended from a motorized mechanism, the reconstructed figure rotated continuously, referencing the repetitive movement of animals in captivity. In conjunction with the exhibition, Alstad initiated the intervention Ziplocked Species, in which images of endangered animals were placed within selected library books, allowing the public to encounter the work unexpectedly over time.

In 2007, Alstad co-created Pixelgrain with artist Leah Lazariuk, an online participatory mapping project documenting the disappearance of prairie grain elevators across Western Canada. Using geographic information systems, photography, video, and community contributions, the project created a digital archive of rural infrastructure and collective memory, addressing themes of environmental change, cultural heritage, and the transformation of agricultural landscapes.^[35][36]

His interactive installation MELT used web cameras and software to create a feedback loop between participants, projected satellite imagery documenting environmental change, and a constructed Arctic diorama made from repurposed computer packaging materials. The work was first exhibited at Surrey Art Gallery in British Columbia and later presented in the exhibition Global Warming at the Icebox in Philadelphia.^[37][38][39]

Alstad’s video work Methane was commissioned for New Climates, an online exhibition examining relationships between art, global climate change, and networked culture. The work was subsequently screened at international festivals and exhibitions, including programs associated with Art Basel, Switzerland and United Nations climate conferences in Paris, Copenhagen, New York City and Cancun.

In 2010, Alstad produced the site-specific installation Factoria during a research residency in Saskatoon as part of the Artist and Community Collaboration Program supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. The residency brought together the University of Saskatchewan College Art Galleries, the Meewasin Valley Authority, and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity. Drawing on archival research and local histories, the installation referenced the planned industrial settlement of Factoria, a proposed early twentieth-century development that was never completed. The work incorporated solar-powered lighting and recycled materials, referencing sustainability and the environmental history of the site. Factoria was presented as part of Formerly Exit Five: Portable Monuments to Recent History, University of Saskatchewan College Art Galleries.^{[40] [41]}

In 2009, Alstad collaborated with curator and scholar Shauna McCabe on the Lost Highway Project, a creative research residency and locative media workshop affiliated with the Centre for Humanities and Arts Research in Transdisciplinary Space (CHARTS) at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. The project explored transitional landscapes and remnant infrastructure through fieldwork, archival research, and collaborative digital mapping examining how place is shaped through memory, mobility, and changing patterns of settlement.^[42][43]

In 2005, Alstad participated in an artist residency at the Gil Society in Akureyri, Iceland. During the residency, he produced a series of photographic works and a video documenting the annual réttir, a traditional autumn sheep gathering in which farmers herd livestock from mountain grazing areas back to local communities. The project focused on seasonal land use and rural cultural practices, developed through field observation and collaboration with local residents.^[44]

In addition to his artistic work, Alstad has curated exhibitions and digital media projects exploring mapping, urban space, and networked culture.

Through his work with the artist collective Year Zero One, he curated digital media projects including Terminal Zero One (2007–2008), a public exhibition presented at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

He curated the Subversive Cartographies section for the Museums and the Web online exhibition Dubious Views, which examined alternative mapping practices and the cultural implications of geographic representation.

Alstad also conceived and designed collaborative digital heritage and storytelling projects including Queerstory, a public history initiative documenting LGBTQ+ histories in Toronto, and TXTilecity, a mobile media project exploring urban narratives through location-based storytelling technologies.

Other curatorial projects include:

• Pixel Plunder, an online exhibition exploring digital appropriation and remix culture^[45][46]

• McLuhan100: Medium Massage 2.0, an exhibition examining the legacy of media theorist Marshall McLuhan^[47]
• SynSoma and Contingent Ecologies, exhibitions addressing technology, environment, and social systems^[48]

His curatorial practice emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement with emerging media technologies.

In the 2020s, Alstad has continued to document urban transformation through an ongoing series of photographic and digital animation works focused on Toronto’s rapidly changing architectural landscape. The series examines construction processes and transitional urban sites, incorporating recurring structural elements such as scaffolding, cranes, grid frameworks, and heritage façades. Selected works from the series have been presented on the digital art platform Foundation.

• Liquid Cohesion, interactive video installation, Nuit Blanche, Toronto, September 30, 2012
• "FORMERLY EXIT FIVE: Portable Monuments to Recent History" College Art Galleries, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sept 17 - Dec 17, 2010
• Dig Up My Heart: Artistic Practice in the Field, Confederation Gallery, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 2010
• Global Warming at the Icebox, Crane Arts Building, Philadelphia, 2008
• TechLab, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, British Columbia, 2008
• Nature Version 2.0: Ecological Modernities and Digital Environmentalism, Colgate University Art Gallery, Hamilton, New York, January 21 – February 16, 2008
• Free Sample, MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2005
• Helden der Arbeit, Berlin, Germany, 2002
• Territories, Cambridge Art Galleries, Cambridge, Ontario, 2003
• "The Derelict Sensation" - London, UK, November, 2003
• The Last Supper, Mercer Union, Toronto, 1998
• UnHumanKind: Paradoxes of Speciesism, A Space Gallery, Toronto, 1996

• Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver — Interdisciplinary Studies
• University of Toronto — Information Technology Design Centre, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

• Award of Excellence, Media Category, Heritage Toronto Awards, 2015 – Queerstory^[49]
• Best Mobile App / Documentary, Heritage Toronto Awards, 2013 – TXTilecity
• Best of the Web Award, Museums and the Web, 2013 – TXTilecity
• PromArt Grant, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, 2008 – support for participation in the exhibition Global Warming at the Icebox, Philadelphia