'MARBLING PAINTING ON A SPHERE OF WATER' AND 'SPIRAL TOP':EXPERIMENT ARTWORKS OF WATER AND LIGHT CREATED IN JEMS KIBO MODULE OF THE ISS

摘要

According to the renowned undersea explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau, "When the first vertebrates crawled out ofthe sea, that (gravity) was the original sin. Only when we who most closely resemble marine mammals return tothe sea, will we be redeemed."It is possible that when as Cousteau anticipated, the people return to a zero-gravity environment, it will notbe to the ocean, but to outer space. Life on Earth took a long time to evolve in oceans where bubbles from livingorganisms have been rising to the surface. Floating a watery sphere in zero-gravity space is something that"reverses the world inside out," and signifies a new evolutionary process. From 2008 to 2011, at the request ofthe author, members of the International Space Station (ISS) crew conducted two experiments with water andlight: "Marbling painting on spheres of water," and "Spiral top." The former experiment used Japanesecalligraphic ink to paint marbling patterns on spheres of water. The patterns were then absorbed onto Japanesesemi-spherical rice paper and brought back to Earth. In the latter experiment, a luminescent revolving sculpturewas used to create traces of light in multiplex patterns in space. These art experiments were conducted to create a"new visual world." We/the author will give overviews of the experiments and report on the results.This paper explains about the meaning, purpose, and experimental methodology of art experiments conductedinside the Japanese experimental module "KIBO" of the International Space Station, and reports on the results ofthe experiments. That is followed by an introduction to education related to space and art at the University ofTsukuba and the "Beyond Space+Art+Design" project of the space and art research community.