Porculpa is the name of a female Russian cat that I took into zero gravity onboard a parabolic aeroplane in 2008. It also means ‘Your Fault’ in Latin.
The plane left from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City in Moscow and flew over Azerbaijan. I filmed Porculpa as she adapted to the conditions over 10 parabolas. Each parabola of the IL-76 aeroplane gives roughly 23 seconds of weightlessness. Inside the red container that you see are two mice which were meant to be released at the same time but the Russian Space Agency stipulated that they could not risk the mice getting loose and chewing wires. Both Porculpa and the mice were inside of a specially designed tent (Designer: Nick Joyce/Enigma FX) which was made from ripstack material with crash mats underneath to minimise risk. The height of the protective tent was 6’5”.
After initially considering a hummingbird to see how its flight instinct in weightlessness would be affected, and also discovering that many animals have been tested in isolation but not in relationships to one another, I decided to use a cat and mouse to frame predator prey behaviour in a zero gravity setting.
You cannot rehearse for this environment and research is no real preparation. I chose microgravity flight and animals to create a situation where I had to create a performance in which instinct is the script.
In the full footage of ten parabolas, what you do see is the cat begin to adapt to the conditions and display agility and prowess in landing. It uses the container with the mice in to grab onto and turns it around. Its lack of sentience is the deciding factor in the performance.
In hindsight, I could have given the cat a beach ball and it would have reacted the same.
