Josiah McElheny: Island Universe

Josiah McElheny’s dramatic Island Universe, installed in the center of the Resnick Pavilion, embodies the concept of the multiverse, or multiple coexisting universes. Now a key element of contemporary cosmological thinking, the concept of the multiverse was first proposed in ancient Greece, then in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and 18th-century astronomy. McElheny, who is interested in how scientific inquiry is conditioned by and impacts philosophical, sociological, and political thought, finds a clear connection to the historical shifts that call for the decentering of Western knowledge, and even human-centric thought. The artist worked collaboratively with astrophysicist David Weinberg in developing Island Universe, which he considers “drawings of time,” with “each rod a measure of time—every inch, time doubles.”