liquid gravity
2013
Format 1: 132 x 202 cm / 52 x 79.5 in, edition of 6 + 2 AP
Format 2: 67 x 102 cm / 26.3 x 40.2 in, edition of 6 + 2 AP
Hybrid photography, archival pigment print, aludibond, diasec, custom-made aluminium frame
“liquid gravity” explores linkages between space, gravity, and the human body. A cosmonaut levitates above the ground in what seems at first sight to be an industrial environment. In fact it's the world's largest hydrolab at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Known as “neutral buoyancy”, the principle of simulating weightlessness in a huge tank of water was first developed by Buzz Aldrin for the Gemini project in the early 1960s. Since then the hydrolab has been a vital part of training for all cosmonauts and astronauts.
The artwork "liquid gravity" draws on a cosmonaut training session taken by Michael Najjar in December 2012 at Star City. The artist spent two hours under water in an original EVA spacesuit. The picture was taken at a depth of 12m and subsequently one element was digitally added – the Earth. The view of the Earth through the porthole dislocates the viewer’s perspective of space and questions the relationship between the real-world and fabricated reality.
