2018
Workshop at Aldea Center for Contemporary Art, Design and Technology
In 2018, “Mad Mike” Michael Hughes gained international attention after launching himself approximately 500 metres into the air above the California desert in a home-built steam-powered rocket. Parts of this rocket, used in his broader programme of fundraising rocket launches aimed at financing a journey into space to verify the Earth’s shape through direct observation, were later acquired for inclusion in the exhibition The Frisbee Perspective, a solo presentation at Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum later that year.
In the autumn of the same year, Aldea Center for Contemporary Art, Design and Technology opened in Bergen. As one of its first public events, Hughes was invited to lead a rocket-building workshop in the institution’s newly established metal workshop.
The workshop was conceived not as an exercise in rocket launching, but as an entry point for discussing practical knowledge and technology in a broader sense, while also creating a space for shared activity across political and epistemic divides. Hughes himself remained committed to the idea of reaching space in order to verify the Earth’s shape through direct observation, using rocket launches and related stunts as a means of fundraising for this ambition.
Prior to the workshop, Hughes presented his mission to reach space, followed by a panel discussion with artist Jessica MacMillan, physicist Vladislav Kochback, and Aldea director Cameron MacLeod. The conversation addressed questions of epistemology, practical knowledge, and “post-truth”, including Hughes’ insistence on sensory verification and his extensive hands-on expertise in DIY rocket construction.
In 2020, Hughes tragically died during an unsuccessful rocket launch in California.
