| INTRODUCTION
The painting, Flight of the Witches (1797-98) by Francisco de Goya , depicts a figure with its head covered by a sheet over which three witches hover. In their arms they carry a reclining person, perhaps the spiritual double of the sheet-covered man. In the background, almost completely swallowed up by the blackness, we can see a donkey and a figure lying face down protecting its head with its hands. The vertex of the triangular composition points upward to the sky, giving us the impression of an ascent. Two different planes coincide in this piece: earth reality and the dreamlike state to which the weightless figures belong. In the terrestrial plane both the figure with its head covered and the one lying on the ground, as well as the donkey, all gaze downwards towards the Earth. In these figures one perceives blindness (the covered head), madness (the protected head), and stupidity (the donkey). Within the dreamlike plane live the weightless figures of the witches with their long pointed hats that remind us of clowns, carnivals, and the world of the imaginary. It is this fantasy world that transports the reclining figure, who gazes upwards with a mixture of anguish and ecstasy. The reclining figure is unbalanced, fearful of falling even though he is firmly held by the three witches. The prevailing pitch-black background of the painting suggests a nocturnal scene. A sudden burst of light penetrates the darkness, interrupting the witchcraft. The figures appear to be protecting themselves from the light whose shadows indicate it is coming from the upper left hand corner. This painting is a useful starting point from which to contemplate our current attraction to weightlessness. The canvas suggests how intellectual blindness leads to the imagining of witches and other floating apparitions. The logic of the Enlightenment, metaphorically portrayed by the penetrating shaft of light, wants to reveal and eradicate these fantastical beings as if they were cockroaches in the dark. Nevertheless these apparitions remain stubbornly in our minds. To the Enlightenment, the freedom and unchained wandering of the imagination represented a threat. The struggle between the neatly ordered reality proposed by science and the fantasy-filled hallucinations of the imagination severely destabilized 18th century individuals. We can sense this struggle in Flight of the Witches. Being an educated man himself, Goya believed firmly in the illuminating power of rationality that the Enlightenment brought to a Europe darkened by superstition. At the same time, we sense his deep attraction to this sinister side of the imagination. The painter explores the dark caves of the mind that resist being enlightened and which constantly threaten our psychological balance.
Thus weightlessness remains associated to the discourse of mental imbalance. The modern age has managed to channel these dangerous fantasies of levitation through the experience of technology-induced weightlessness. The contradiction proposed by the Enlightenment is thereby resolved: science is used to construct and make real the deep desire within us to float and in the process making this desire palatable and socially acceptable. Today astronauts have replaced witches, and their witchcraft is produced by those technologies that allow humans to survive in space. Scientists are the new wizards that have made possible the modern miracle of weightless flight. In addition, they have created a fascinating social space where traditional points of reference have been radically altered. This dislocation of reality subjects us to a state of delirium, permitting us to explore desires and fantasies normally locked deep within our minds. Ingrávidos explores our contemporary journey in search of weightlessness and how our compulsive distancing from Earth has changed us forever.
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