Description

Haunting and beautiful, City Distortions takes a leaf from J G Ballard’s apocalyptic and visionary novel The Drowned World. The pleasure palaces of our teeming cities, reflected in the Thames water so that it appears half submerged. In this way the image encapsulates ideas of sustainability, change, and the balance of forces that make up the urban environment.
The mirrored space suggests an uninhabitable city - a flooded metropolis - or one that would have to be navigated in new ways. This piece explores city expansion, development and concerns for a sustainable future.

City Distortions is part of an ongoing investigation around power-hungry global cities and the environment. The mirrored footage suggests an uninhabitable city – a flooded metropolis – a reflection on the ever-impending threat of climate change.

The work stems from a fascination with the centres we construct, the forms they take and what they reveal about us, at a time when more than half of the world's population live in cities, a proportion that is expected to rise to three quarters by 2050.

The foundation of Jaykoe's practice is drawing and tracing movements in city space, encompassing a range of processes to sample and form interventions.

The soundtrack composition, and improvisation on the live audio-visual remix version of the piece, is performed by Leon Michener