“Ascension” serves as a dark and sardonic interpretation of Ilya Kabakov’s renowned 1985 installation, “The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment.” On August 2nd 2024, this project took place in room no.7 of the Nader Motel, a cheap motel near the Tehran Grand Bazaar, and was open to invited visitors for nearly four hours. This work investigates themes of Utopia, Accelerationism, and Imagination within the framework of Iran’s contemporary socio-political milieu. While Kabakov’s protagonist acts under the authoritarian conditions of Soviet Russia, influenced by Russian cosmism and scientific atheism, the protagonist in “Ascension” meets his demise under analogous socio-political conditions shaped by the hegemonic philosophical paradigm of emancipatory theology. Whereas Kabakov’s total installation aspires toward corporeal immortality within the atemporal confines of a museum, “Ascension” broadens the conceptual scope of total installation by situating itself within the temporal and ephemeral reality of everyday life, characterized by its inherent transience.