A Third Version of the Imaginary

​A Third Version of the Imaginary traces an encounter with the video and film library of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation in Nairobi. We follow the station’s librarian through tightly-packed shelves of video cassettes: he is searching for a specific image, and must sift through the identifying paperwork from a number of tapes. As he methodically moves among the stacks, a Swahili voice-over speaks about the arrival of video technology in Kenya and its impact on the archiving of television images: video may have cheapened production, but its material expense put pressure on storage. Later, the librarian converts a basement storage closet into a makeshift cinema, to screen some 16mm film material. The voice-over shifts accordingly, moving from video to film, and to the linguistic problem posed by the very word “image” in Swahili. A visual and narrative echo chamber, this video addresses video’s address of film: the material facts of these media become the aesthetic facts of the work.