With a climate change naysayer as the US president and London hitting its upper limit of air pollution levels within just five days of 2017 – resulting in subsequent toxic air alerts across the capital during the month of January – it seems entirely nonhyperbolic to suggest we’re living in an increasingly dystopian reality. However, when visual artist Ayesha Tan-Jones first embarked on their Indigo Zoom project in 2013, they had no idea the issues explored in their film would have such pertinent parallels with their everyday existence so soon.
Entitled Indigo Zoom, Tan-Jones' film and immersive exhibition experience sketches out a world in which the air on our planet is too toxic to breathe freely. Presenting a parallel universe in which a corporate government seeks to privatise clean air and sell it back to the planet’s population for profit, the film undoubtedly dances with issues we’re facing today. “It's kind of really serendipitous that my dystopian sci-fi fantasy story is culminating now when the issues are seeping over into reality. It's almost like I've summoned all of this – I didn't mean to!”, Tan-Jones tells us, half-jokingly.
Following hydrogen hackers and modern-day superhero Indigo Zoom on their quest to source clean air and escape the shackles of the establishment, the project serves as a tongue-in-cheek warning as to what further environmental damage could mean for our own existence.
To read Iona Gamble's interview with Ayesha Tan Jones head over to Dazed