[11] For "The Future Can Only be Told in Reverse" organized by the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, thirteen artists presented works produced in response to the interactive archive and novel.

[13] The genre wunder-roman captures the mental imagery of navigating various components such as a narrated, media archive layered with sound or a comic historical novel accompanied by essays.

Literary critic Jan Baetens considers The Imaginary 20th Century a "contemporary version of the classic 'great American novel', [yet] seen from a more global perspective, since [it] includes a large number of paratextual and metatextual material.

"[16] It thus resembles a picaresque, the 16th century Spanish prototype of the modern novel whereby episodic narratives feature shysters and humble survivors in a nearly hopeless world.

Part II of the book contains four essays: on the curating of the archive; on “picaresque disasters”; on the future city; and on the “automated utopia.” This serves as another layer, but also as a hinge between the media narrative and the novel.