La Couleur de Montréal is a visual art project that reimagines public infrastructure as a creative medium. Using Montréal’s network of traffic cameras, it documents environmental conditions through the lens of the city’s skies. The project explores the intersections of surveillance, art, and digital decentralization.
Initially inspired by the open-source bot The Color of Berlin, this project localizes the concept to Montréal. It extracts dominant colors from live camera feeds and shares them as La Couleur du Ciel de Montréal on social platforms. Over time, it evolved into a layered narrative incorporating decentralization, NFT archiving, and live exhibitions.
However, the city-provided camera feeds stopped updating on March 12, 2024, leaving a frozen archive of images. This marked the end of the project’s reliance on municipal infrastructure, but its independent live feed and decentralized archives continue to operate.
Through these elements, La Couleur de Montréal critiques and reimagines the role of public systems, exposing their vulnerabilities while showcasing their potential for creative transformation.