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‘Black Mirror’ fans should definitely be putting a visit to the Barbican’s upcoming sci-fi exhibition in their diaries – as an entire episode will go on display.
Charlie Brooker’s hit TV series forecasts a different near-future in each episode: always grim, always dystopian and always in a world royally screwed up by the excesses of digital media and consumerism. The exhibition will feature a two-minute extract from the series one episode ‘15 Million Merits’, in which incarcerated citizens have to cycle on exercise bikes to accrue points that allow them to compete in game shows. Optimistic stuff, as ever.
'Black Mirror: 15 Million Merits'. Courtesy of House of Tomorrow.
It’s a great show: this much we all know. But this will be ‘Black Mirror’ on steroids: re-edited, chopped, mashed up and displayed across multiple screens in an immersive installation. It’s ‘Black Mirror’ out of the confines of your living room – like you’ve never seen it before.
The rest of the exhibition will chart the genre’s long and illustrious history across cinema, art, literature, music and video games, and is shaping up to be one of the most exciting exhibitions of the summer season. Well, for certain lifelong sci-fi nerds masquerading as journalists, anyway.
Still, 'Metropolis', 1927, Courtesy the Roger Grant Archive.
‘Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction’ opens at the Barbican on Jun 3.
Find more great art right here.