Some science-art installations artists find impossible to do!

Mad, bad and impossible to make

A secretive exhibition in Basel celebrates artists’ projects that never got past the planning stages

By Cristina Ruiz | Source:  Art Basel daily edition

Best laid plans: Momoyo Torimitsu’s "Disposable Mine Detector", left, and Armajani’s space

london. As Neil Armstrong took his first small steps on the moon, Siah Armajani was planning his very own giant leap for mankind. The Iranian-born, US-based artist designed a tower in 1969, to be suspended in outer space but anchored to earth by a cable, and to remain in synchronous orbit with our planet. An opposing cable of equal length and weight would attach to the other end of the structure and balance the pull of gravity with centrifugal force.

The project, entitled A Fairly Tall Tower, 48,000 Miles High, exists today only on a single sheet of paper. It was always an “unlikely” project to be realised, said curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, “but not impossible”.

Armajani’s space tower is one of around 500 unrealised artistic proposals documented and collected by Obrist over the past 25 years, a selection of which are going on display in Basel this week. 

( I too want to do space installations that can be viewed from earth! If NASA or ISRO can help me.........Krishna)