In an abandoned New York City near the end of time, a small group of survivors gather for a seance in the ruined ballroom of the once mighty Grand Gotham Hotel. Here they encounter the ghost of the hotel’s most famous resident, Nikola Tesla, whose last years were spent in Room 3327. One by one, they join Tesla, acting out his dreams in a ritual circus of life, conveyed in a series of vignettes that mix elements of spectacle, absurdity, avant-garde film, blackout comedy, and musical theater.
A striking figure—tall, elegant in dress, and grandiloquent in speech—Tesla was a brilliant scientist and engineer whose view of the physical world was imbued with mystical spirituality. He once dined daily at the famous Delmonico’s, seated among the barons of Wall Street, who celebrated and profited mightily from his inventions. As his dreams of the future were thwarted by the powers of big money and government, he gradually retreated into a parallel world of his imagination, watching over the pigeons in Bryant Park, especially the one he said was his true love, “a creature of purest white, with silver traces on her wings.”
The Lives and Dreams of Nikola Tesla was featured at the Guggenheim Museum as part of a program of Works & Process in April 2024.