Nov. – Dec. 2024. The Imaginary 20th Century re-entered the gallery space through the theme of parallel worlds. A group exhibition at Phase Gallery in Los Angeles featured recent collaborative works by Norman Klein and new works by Scott Benzel. Installations and video were assembled around the interactive novel: The Secret Rise of Skunk Works (2022), a staging of the world of espionage at Lockhead Corporation during WWII; John Hawks’ film A Third of a Dollar (2024) in which Klein reimagines the mysterious disappearance of Leon Theremin in 1938, the Soviet techno-genius who pioneered electronic music and industrial espionage; and Jens Martin Gurr’s recent documentary film of Klein’s 2003 interactive novel Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles. Events included screenings, a talk by Gurr entitled “Media, Memory and the City in Bleeding Through,” and a live, curator-performed presentation of The Imaginary 20th Century.