1993: Niu Bo - The Zero-Gravity Project
In 1993, the same year Woods launched "The Cosmic Dancer", the Chinese artist Niu Bo started "The Zero-Gravity Project", which he first pursued in Japan with a plane that flies in parabolic arcs at 20,000-25,000 ft. Bo covered the interior of the plane with rice paper and used a paint produced from the mixture of several elements. To create this paint the artist combined China ink, watercolor, and oil, among other materials, and placed the paint in balloons. During the near weightlessness of microgravity flights, he released the paint. With his "Space Atelier" Bo wishes to convey that just as the Impressionists had to leave their studios to explore the possibilities of natural light, a new culture will be created when artists leave the surface of the Earth.1
Niu Bo's Technik erinnert an Vorbilder wie Jackson Pollock, welche die Farbe über die Leinwand fließen ließ ("Drip Painting") oder an Herrmann Nitsch's "Schüttbilder". Die Schwerelosigkeit erlaubt hier ein Verteilen der Farbe in alle Dimensionen, sie ist vom Fallen befreit, reine kinetische Masse.
1) Eduardo Kac: Against Gravitropism: Art and the Joys of Levitation, online: http://www.ekac.org/levitation.html