“I guess the goal, always, is to make people say, ‘oh shit’ — and if you can get that response it’s the greatest thing in the whole world,” says Jon McCurley, a week before the opening of Double Double Land Land. McCurley’s eighth staged play, a result of five months of collaboration with various artists, runs for one night only at Gallery TPW, and chronicles the struggle of the inhabitants of Double Double Land to start a Revolution of Use: a redefinition of their mediocrity as something rather than nothing in the face of a “culture of fear and doubt.” A symphony of performance, video projection, installation and theatre, McCurley’s work includes an exhibit for those who can’t be accommodated at the limited-seating performance. “The art show is supposed to be us in the real world acting on that philosophy [i.e., of the Revolution of Use],” he explains. “It’s people in Toronto believing that mentality and applying it to sculpture art.”

What is Double Double Land and is it based on any particular city or town?
Double Double Land is the shitty town where everyone lives. It’s beside another town called Tuba City which is where all the money is and where all the prosperity is and where all the heroes all live. I think both the shitty town and the great town are both Toronto; it’s just different elements of it or different ways of looking at it.

So can we expect it to be a contemporary and identifiable rendition of Toronto?
It’s completely the opposite. The set is more conceptual. It’s blobs. It’s running around blobs, really harsh colours and everything is upside down. The people that are moving the set are really conveying the attitude rather than how it looks. The set is moving in this way that is dumb and confused; it’s six people running around. The costumes are like Roy Rogers mixed with Dune mixed with, like, tumors or something.

Is this the first time that you’ve had a project of this specific nature?
It’s the first time that one project has had all these elements. I have done performances before and I have done exhibitions before but nothing all-encompassing like this. This has more of a purpose. The idea behind it was the philosophy or idea of the Revolution of Use and to push that as hard as possible and make it as clear as we can, and then the punch-line is the exhibition afterward.

What is the nature of the exhibition and how does it fit into the broader thematics of the performance?
It’s totally interactive. It’s not a traditional art gallery show as I suppose traditional art gallery shows are. It’s set up just in the middle of the floor, and all the pieces are demonstrated with the other artists involved in producing the work. We’re there during the day and when people come we demonstrate how to use all these things because the whole show is about use. It’s not just looking at it and understanding it; there’s a person there to show you how to use it, though sometimes it doesn’t work or make sense.

With the political and economical uncertainty today, the notion of a culture of fear and death in a work of art seems appropriate.  What is the significance of this to you?
I guess I'm trying to be honest. All the humor in the comedy I do and the performance I do is from somewhere but like everyone it seems like [I] act on fear. We’re full of fear. We’re scared to do stuff and that’s what makes it exciting. I think it’s supposed to be a positive [approach to] the doubt everyone has living here.  The play is, overall, positive, but it situates [this] in a fearful and doubtful way.