Introduction: The Project

“If the spectacle was bad art, the creation of situations was the good.”
—Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces [1]

Research Project Number 33: Investigating the Creative Process in a Microgravity Environment [2] was an interdisciplinary action that bridged the sensibility of the artist with the technology of space flight. On 4 April 1998, I flew aboard a NASA KC135 turbojet (Fig. 1) over the Gulf of Mexico from Houston’s Johnson Space Center and experienced the awe-inspiring sensation of creating art in a microgravity environment as scientific research. (The KC135 approximates zero gravity [zero-g]; true zero-g is attainable only in outer space.) The KC135 flew 42 parabolas, diving between 34,000 and 24,000 feet, resulting in 18–25 seconds of weightlessness followed by 40–50 seconds of 2g force (twice the normal gravitational force of the earth). (Fig. 2)

My intention was simple: to eliminate the structural support—the canvas—while creating paintings in mid-air, with my body as part of the composition. I intended for technology and microgravity to contribute to the organic development of these kinetic “drift paintings” with spontaneity and serendipity orchestrating the results (Fig. 3).

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