Categorically Not! began as a gleam in the eye of the late artist Bob Miller. His refusal to put art, science, politics, life or anything else into boxes continues to inspire and influence our presentations at Santa Monica Art Studios.
We try to avoid categories at all costs, as well as other barriers to participation. We’re free. We’re spontaneous. We’re unrehearsed. We believe the only way to make real discoveries to take risks.
Cat Not, as we’ve come to call it, first came to life at the Cornelia Street Café in New York where owner Robin Hirsch took a flyer on a wacky program on the subject of “nothing,” with KC Cole on the physics of nothing, the neuroscientist Oliver Sacks on psychological nothings, and Nobel laureate in chemistry (and elegant writer) Roald Hoffmann reading some of his poems dealing emotional nothings. Roald continues to curate the series, Entertaining Science, and we recently celebrated with a reunion.
It became clear we needed such a program here in Los Angeles: too many good ideas and willing people, too little time, wrong coast. So KC looked around for a venue.
Sherry Frumkin and Yossi Govrin, who had recently turned a hangar at Santa Monica airport into 30 artist studios with exhibition space, offered us the perfect space.
Sherry Frumkin and Yossi Govrin, who had recently turned a hangar at Santa Monica airport into 30 artist studios with exhibition space, offered us the perfect space.
Sherry
KC
Yossi
Since we’re in an airport/art studio instead of a cabaret, Categorically Not! has taken flight in its own style. Generally we’ve followed the Cornelia Street format: three people from three different fields (physics, theater, art, for example) give short presentations/performances that circle a common theme (Fluid Dynamics, Gravity/Levity, Mixtures).
Many people helped us get the series off the ground, among them Clifford Johnson, Don Byrd, Doe Mayer , Jed Dannenbaum, and Sabine and Joseph Pearlman.
Many people helped us get the series off the ground, among them Clifford Johnson, Don Byrd, Doe Mayer , Jed Dannenbaum, and Sabine and Joseph Pearlman.
Clifford
Don
Doe
Jed
The model is, of course, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, “a community museum dedicated to awareness,” founded by the late physicist Frank Oppenheimer. He used to say that artists and scientists the official “noticers” of society.
In these times, we need the noticings of all kinds of people to help us keep our eyes open, ideas percolating, understanding growing. If such efforts don’t ultimately determine the fate of our world, at least they invite us to partake of it fully.
Artist Bob Miller
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