Whether due to an influx of science fiction literature or the advancement of technology, there has been a cultural fascination with watchful and oppressive governments. However, few thought experiments are as artistically interesting as Le Cyc, a 70-minute multimedia performance about a dystopian bicycle-powered city.

Le Cyc will be performed at the Arts Project Sunday evening. It will be the last showing for some time according to illustrator Dave Willekes, as the group is going back to the literal and figurative drawing board to create another similarly structured piece.

Trying to classify the show is difficult — Willekes calls it a “graphic novel bike opera.” The show consists of 380 drawings on silkscreen painted with coffee and wine, displayed in a series to a seven-piece band that tells the story.

“[It’s] almost like you’re watching the comic in a way,” Willekes says. “There are no words on the images — the words come through in the music through the lyrics. The music and the lyrics tell the whole narrative essentially.”

The story takes place in the future when there is no source of energy available other than the power created by the population constantly peddling their bicycles. The city’s leader is determined by a bike race. The city’s champion cyclist, however, eventually abuses his power and another cyclist rises to challenge him.

The unique project began about two years ago when Willekes and his band, Special Purpose, went on a cross-Canada bicycle trip.

“My friend Eihab [Boraie] was actually in Egypt at the time. When he came back he and some of our other friends came up with the idea that with all the peddling we were doing we could power a city,” Willekes explains. “That was the initial feed for the idea. Eihab and some of our friends wrote some songs based on the idea.”

From there, the show developed into a performance piece, and was fully rounded out on the road.

London’s Open House Arts Collective (Oh!) is responsible for bringing Le Cyc to the city. “When we first got together as a group we all wanted to bring in as many different art forms as possible,” says Paterson Hodgson, one of Oh!’s organizers.

“Theatre, or multimedia, was always something we wanted to get into,” Hodgson says of Le Cyc’s atypical performance. “It just kind of worked out that we wanted to bring them in. It’s a really cool thing and we were able to [find a venue for the show].”

Whether the show’s protean approach will prove successful this weekend or its unfocused medium will send it over the handlebars, Le Cyc is a piece so strange and unique at a distance that it begs one to approach it and take a closer look.

See Le Cyc this Sunday at the Arts Project. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6 at the door and the event is all ages. Arts Project is located at 203 Dundas St. Visit www.lecyc.ca for more information.