Nelson, BC, CANADA - Ian Johnston is an artist based in British Columbia, and has submitted work from his latest installation entitled ‘Fine Line: Check Check’. This exhibition uses video segments, sound and original composition by Don McDonald.

From the submission:

Fine Line: Check Check is a four screen video installation by Ian Johnston, with music by Don Macdonald, that was prematurely cancelled at the Grand Forks Art Gallery in BC where it was to run until April 11. It was also cancelled at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery where it was scheduled to open on June 4 and run until August 29. Funnily or not so funnily enough, this work about certainty and doubt features among other things an interpretation of Howard Hughes’ hand washing instructions, a trope of obsessive compulsive behaviour that has become the focus of our lives.

From curator Carmelle Adam, Vo Art, Centre d’Exposition,  Val d’Or, QUEBEC:

The Fine Line series marks a shift in Ian Johnston's artistic practice from a concern about the materiality of consumer culture to a quest for the role of doubt in mass culture. In the Check Check installation, the omnipresence of the individual who questions themself is inextricably linked to a mass culture marked by mistrust of the mass media that shapes it. Walking through a space delimited by four large projection screens, the visitor is plunged into a fragmentary series of video vignettes presented in a loop in a four-channel sound atmosphere, from an original composition by Don Macdonald. The use of video by Johnston is part of a desire to emphasize the obsessive behavior, familiar for the most part, of our emotionally charged relationship with screens and digital devices. The installation exploits our conditioned responses to visual and auditory signals, like an innate reflex, not only to the sound of a smart phone, but also to the codes of film and television dating back to the silent movie.

Visit the Ian Johnston’s official website for more information and to see more of his work!

Fine Line: Check Check - short excerpts from a 15:30 minute 4 screen video installation with Music by Don Macdonald

Howard Hughes' washing instructions interpreted (To see the original handwashing instructions, check out the description of this video on YouTube!)