Norman Klein & Margo Bistis

The Imaginary 20th Century

2016, interactive installation, 2,200 images & films, maps, sound composition & voice-over narration

Norman Klein’s and Margo Bistis’ The Imaginary 20th Century (2016), featured in the exhibition, operates as an interactive media novel with a database of 2,200 images and films. The story of Carrie and her suitors takes viewers across centuries, continents, historical events, imperialist and utopian fantasies.  All the characters are misremembering the future differently, leaving spaces between, allowing the viewer to puzzle out the phantom that was collectively imagined a century ago.