Art installation comments on our fixation with screens
From March 15 to April 27, the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art will be exhibiting Ian Johnston’s Fine Line: Check Check.
This is the inaugural presentation of the artist’s work, which will travel across Canada after its Kelowna opening.
Stepping into a space intersected by four large projection screens, visitors to the Alternator will be surrounded on all sides by a looping series of videos in a sequence that subtly choreographs the audience’s movement, and is accompanied by a four-channel score from composer Don Macdonald.
Johnston said his work stems from an obsessive behaviour familiar to probably all viewers, namely our “highly emotionally-charged relationship to screens and digital devices.”
“The installation harnesses the knee-jerk nature of our conditioned responses to visual and auditory cues not only the pinging of a smartphone, but even going back as far as silent film,” he said in a release.
“We are excited to be hosting Fine Line: Check Check in the Okanagan,” said Lorna McParland, the Alternator’s artistic and administrative director. “This work provides the opportunity to examine our ongoing relationships with screen culture, which is one that is so predominant in all parts of our routine, but not one that we regularly consider its impact on our well being.”
An opening reception is set for March 15, 6-8:30 p.m., with Johnston speaking at 8 p.m. The Alternator is located in the Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave.