The process used to generate this conceptual piece is essential to the meaning. However, my work is above all intended to be accessible to the viewer on a purely visual level. In this case, the curious viewer may be able to puzzle out some idea of the process behind the piece by considering the relationships between the forms. (Please feel free to take a look at the images before reading the following spoiler.)
The forms in "R.E.L.A.Y." were generated by a variant of the game "telephone".* Using the nine original forms (seen in the first column on the left), two volunteers tried to replicate each form with words alone - one partner described the form in detail while the other sketched it without being able to see the original. These second-generation sketches then became the originals for a new round with new volunteers. The process was repeated 12 times to generate the progression seen in the 108 images, which were "idealized" and rendered on tile. A pocket behind each tile contained a card on which was found the original, un-idealized sketches, and a list of suggestive or metaphorical language culled from the transcripts of each round.
"R.E.L.A.Y." addressed several questions:
Form; What makes it possible for anyone to correctly match up the images in the "quiz"? What is essential form and how is it preserved? What is ideal form and how is it determined? How do people attach representational value to abstract form? What shapes are easy to understand? Which come naturally? Which are beautiful?
Communication; What is the nature of its blatant inaccuracies vs. its surprising fidelities, its universality vs. its subjective, personal nature, its beauty?
Evolution/Entropy/Memetics/Information Theory; Do ideas follow the evolutionary algorithm of replication/mutation/selection? Could these forms be seen as an example of this algorithm, and if so, what do they teach us? Does everything fall apart? What is the relationship between information, entropy and energy? What is special about the anti-entropic tendencies of life?
* As suggested by the biologist Richard Dawkins and the popular science writer Susan Blackmore ("The Meme Machine").