Bound Relationship Relief Map

2008 | Mixed media | 65 x 49 x 47 cm

We all know that relationships are complex. This piece explores the vicissitudes of marriage using science as a medium. It deploys the precise language of mathematics to express an ephemeral experience. It transforms love into an algorithm. 

The "coffee table" is made up of 16 portraits of Chloe and I having a laugh together on the sofa one evening. Each picture is physically distorted in 3 dimensions using bounded relief map calculations.  The "hotter" the point in the picture, the higher the ridge on the table.  The same measure of heat as is used in astronomy to determine the nature of distant stars and galaxies.

The net effect of this algorithm is a coffee table that can hold no coffee. A table that provides beauty and dysfunction simultaneously. A table of certainty and doubt. It is a bounded relationship relief map table. The Mathematics of Love.