For over six decades Carl Cheng (b. 1942 in San Francisco, CA; lives and works in Santa Monica, CA) has worked across a variety of media to explore the tensions between nature, artmaking, identity, and technology. His approach is informed by his dual background as both an artist and industrial designer. He studied at UCLA for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees with photographer Robert Heinecken, and pursued graduate work at the Folkwang Essen, where he was exposed to the interdisciplinary ethos of the Bauhaus. Although Cheng received initial recognition for his molded plastic photographs that were included in MoMA’s 1970 exhibition Photography into Sculpture, he was always experimenting with different materials and forms. Notably, in 1967 he incorporated as John Doe Co. as both a practical solution to sourcing materials and as a critique of both the art market and Vietnam War. Under this anonymous moniker he began producing “products” to fulfill the American appetite for new forms of entertainment and that also foreshadowed the notion of the Anthropocene, a geologic era shaped by humans. His travels throughout Asia and interest in Marcel Duchamp further informed his approach and prompted a shift in his work towards portable objects, recycled materials, and public interventions.

Although he exhibited his work regularly in university art galleries around Los Angeles and at venues such as Capp Street Project and Sculpture Center, beginning in the 1980s he found a wider platform through public art (both official and self-initiated). Working in public space allowed him to create on a more ambitious scale and with greater resources to reach a general audience. In recent years, the methods and questions raised by Cheng’s practice have resonated with a younger generation resulting in his inclusion in group exhibitions and new scholarship. In 2022 REDCAT mounted Cheng’s solo exhibition Material Behavior, which centered on Cheng’s important sand rake Art Tool: Rake 1022, which was restored through a partnership with the ICA Philadelphia, Bonnefanten, and Tinguely Museum for inclusion in this survey exhibition.

Dr. Michalakis is a mathematical physicist at Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. His research focuses on quantum many-body physics, with an emphasis on the mechanisms underlying the emergence of space, time and the laws of physics. He is known for resolving, in collaboration with Microsoft’s Matthew Hastings, the first of 13 “millennium” problems in quantum physics, the mystery behind the Quantum Hall Effect, a deep and technical problem connected to a number of Nobel Prizes in Physics.

Dr. Michalakis has served as science consultant on Now You See Me 2 (Fox), Ant-Man (Marvel/Disney), Ant-Man & The Wasp (Marvel/Disney), and Bill and Ted: Face The Music (Orion Pictures). He is responsible for introducing the “Quantum Realm” into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, igniting a global fascination with such esoteric concepts as quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. Dr. Michalakis has production and writing credits on [Anyone Can Quantum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi0BzqVb44), a short film directed by Alex Winter and narrated by Keanu Reeves, pitting Paul Rudd against Stephen Hawking in a game of Quantum Chess. He has appeared on a number of documentaries, including Netflix’s _Behind the Curve, Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, and Free Color.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Dr. Kasey Rose.