Homotopy and a viscous liquid
No. 247, 1.987
(Topology)
India ink and pencil on paper, 34 X49 cm.
A pudding-like liquid pours out of the sky, dripping from above into an enormous space, where people run randomly about. The gooey batter pulls, beads, and folds in on itself, masking a crystalline structure at center while, on the scenes edge, a church is being washed off of its foundation. In this image, the underlying theme is homotopy, the way in which an object is continuously deformed without breaking. In the case of this viscous fluid, which flows from some unknown vessel, it reveals what are called homotopically invariant properties. Notice the way the same material can be stretched, strained, twisted, and squashed, pulled apart like taffy or pressed together like dough. Yet, its surface remains mostly smooth and the bonds of connection are not broken.
