Homeostasis (from Greek: ὅμοιος, hómoios, “similar,” and στάσις, stásis, “standing still” is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment to maintain it’s integrity and balance.

Homeostasis is proposed as an artwork to specifically focus the attention to the human body as a complex double curved structure of immense intricacy and beauty. Homeostasis is a large scale inflated (helium filled) representation of the human skeleton floating over Clifton Suspension bridge and stayed by cables.

The relationship between the skeleton and the bridge is the complexity of the two structures and the juxtaposition of the forms. One apparently relaxed and the other taught. It is the alignment and distribution of the parts that allows both structures to maintain homeostasis.

The skeleton is the armature with which we transport ourselves through life. The body is a complex double curved structure, including the skeleton, whose outward expression gives us our identity and whose internal workings are self regulating. The occurrence of homeostatic imbalance within this system is the cause of degradation and ultimately, destruction of it’s integrity.

Footnote: “to be considered whilst listening to Like a Bird on a Wire by Leonard Cohen”