The MMCA Performing Arts 2024: Space Elevator is a project that will present monthly programs from May 2024 to February 2025, exploring different imaginations and sensibilities toward outer space, here conceived as an alternate reality. The project begins by asking “why” humans desire to leave the already self-sufficient Earth and move to yet another reality in outer space, and “how” this goal can be achieved through imaginations of unconventional methodologies. To this end, the project proposes an intriguing concept called the “space elevator”–an idea that may seem somewhat unfamiliar to many, but which has actually been extensively explored in the field of engineering for a long period of time.



Currently, the only way to get into space is to launch a rocket. It is an unstable method that requires an enormous amount of energy and fuel, and carries the risk of explosion. Often cited as a more efficient alternative to rocket launches, the space elevator is a concept proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895, which suggests an architectural method of reaching the geostationary orbit with an elevator, to a point where it is no longer affected by gravity. Imagine an enormous structure connecting the equator to the geostationary orbit at an altitude of 35,785 km, a space elevator that touches the future using a method from the past. Not since Marcel Duchamp marveled at the aviation propeller in 1912 has there been a more colossal, futuristic, and practical spectacle on Earth than this. And yet, as this monumental piece of engineering grows in scale, it will also trigger a deeper sense of planetary anxiety, and evoke a fundamental reluctance to venture into space.



Arthur C. Clarke explores the space elevator in depth in his science fiction novel The Fountains of Paradise. Morgan, the protagonist and engineer, embarks on an ambitious project to construct a space elevator, but faces numerous challenges. The novel’s setting, in which the elevator can only be built atop a grand 3,000-year-old temple of a great king, creates a direct clash between the past and the future, spirituality and science. The temple was built by King Kalidasa, who, after killing his father and ascending to the throne, built a rock palace and dreamed of his own eternal paradise. But as history tends to repeat itself, this monumental engineering project, the largest of its time, is destined to be replaced by yet another engineering marvel.

We will set art as a mirror to reflect these enduring desires, practical difficulties, and fundamental fears about our future and the universe. What is innovation in art, and why must we insist on it? How do ideas from the past remain relevant today? The project contemplates on the longings, difficulties, physicality, and intrinsic fears that we have in art that will never dissipate. In 2024, the MMCA Performing Arts: Space Elevator will open the door to imaginations sparked by engineering and hopes to raise inspiring questions about art and the universe as a new reality.