10.
Michel Tombroff (BE)
In Praise of Love
2019
Neon installation
2 pcs, 1: 16 x 70 cm, 2: 16 x 90 cm
In Praise of Love is made up of two neon lights, each of which represent a tautology: a statement that is true, whether by construction, by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.
The statement on the left uses the universal quantifier \(\forall\) (‘for all’), “); the one on the right uses the existential quantifier \(\exists\) (“there exists”) and the negation \(\sim\).
\(\forall x \ (x=x)\) : “Everything is identical to itself.”
\(\sim \exists \sim (x=x)\) : “No thing exists that is non-identical to itself.”
That is what these two statements say in a symbolic form.
The question posed by the work is whether these two statements say the same thing…
