The Multiverse at Wysing
It’s that old chestnut ‘art and science’ again, something I come back to endlessly in things I write, especially since I talked to Arts Catalyst’s Nicola Triscott for Apollo last year. And for better or worse it’s a disciplinary boundary / tension / conversation that seems endlessly to appeal to artists.
The Wysing Arts Centre is the kind of place that allows that interest to flourish. Founded over 20 years ago in 1989, on a farm near a small village outside Cambridge, Wysing has since become a prestigious centre for artists’ residencies, which also hosts exhibitions, events, a music festival and more. Each year they have a theme for the resident artists to respond to, and 2015’s theme is the Multiverse. On Saturday, I headed off into the wilds of Cambridgeshire with a colleague to find out more at the launch day.
The ‘multiverse’ is a cross-disciplinary theory that ours is not the only universe, and there are, in fact, multiple parallel or alternate universes running alongside our own, possibly within different time and space and responding to different physical laws. That means there might be infinite mes writing a blog post at this moment, as well as infinite mes that chose to do something else on a Monday evening and have therefore branched off into a different life trajectory. This is a theory that, understandably, appeals to physicists, philosophers, astronomers and, perhaps especially, writers. The multiverse provides huge scope for science fiction in the potential it offers of alternate realities.
As part of the Wysing launch day we heard or saw a wide range of responses to this appealing concept. Projection installations by Lis Rhodes (her mesmerising Light Music piece) and Joey Holder (perazoa presenting new ways to navigate the natural world) were shown alongside fiction readings by writers Mark von Schlegell and Tom Morton. Art theorist Dr Simon O’Sullivan and artist Irene Revell spoke alongside astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees and Anne-Christine Davis, Professor of Particle Physics. Two experimental films by Maya Deren from the 1940s and 50s served to give surprisingly prescient visual expression to some of the wide-ranging discussions. At Land in particular will stay with me for some time.
I was left still pondering why the concept of the multiverse is appealing to so many, but particularly to artists and writers. In the round-table discussion Mark von Schlegell mentioned being post-modern, and I think, perhaps, the Multiverse’s appeal is in being the ultimate post-modern concept. The idea of multiple universes, all connected to but separate from our own, presents the possibility of endless different histories, cultures, and societies, as well as a sense of freedom to criticise and make mistakes if another you is making the right decision somewhere else.
The day brought us multiple, somewhat sporadic, perspectives. But is that the nature of multiverse as a concept? I'll be interested to see what freedom it gives to the artists in residence at Wysing.