“There's plenty of room at the bottom” is the title of a 1959 lecture by physicist Richard Feynman and is considered the first scientific reference to the potential of nanotechnology: “What would happen if we could arrange atoms one by one just the way we want them to be?”
Nanotechnology has a special relationship with photography: the daguerreotype, the first photographic process in history, has recently been identified as one of the earliest (and unconscious) examples of nanotechnology. The optical qualities and extremely high definition of daguerreotypes are in fact related to the size of the silver, mercury, and gold nanoparticles observed on the surface of the photographic plates. After all, nanoscience—dealing with the infinitely small—has a unique relationship with visibility and invisibility, with light and matter, much like the photographic process itself.
Drawing on this inspiration, Giorgio Di Noto conducts his research by seeking, on one hand, to engage with a technology and a science that have become fundamental in recent decades, and on the other, to establish a visual and conceptual connection with photography—starting precisely from the physics and chemistry that made it possible. His investigation thus focuses on the possible connections between a science that studies an invisible world and a technology that represents, at least in appearance, the visible one.
The result of this ongoing project unfolds within the offices of Volvo Studio Milano as a series of visual notes exploring the relationship between photography and nanotechnology, the visible and the invisible. Artistic investigations into light, materials and photographic processes, surfaces, transparency, transmission, and reflection. What emerges is a fascinating and surprising body of cross-disciplinary work that touches upon the very nature of the image—photographic and otherwise—its tangible and intangible, material and conceptual properties
There’s plenty of room at the bottom by Giorgio di Noto
Vernissage on Thursday 23rd October at 7 pm
Opening event featuring a talk with the art critic and curator Mauro Zanchi
The exhibition will be on view every Saturday from 10am to 7pm, until 15th January 2026
More info at: info@viasaterna.com
@ Volvo Studio Milano
(Viale della liberazione corner Via Melchiorre Gioia)
REGISTER HERE FOR THE EVENT
Nanotechnology has a special relationship with photography: the daguerreotype, the first photographic process in history, has recently been identified as one of the earliest (and unconscious) examples of nanotechnology. The optical qualities and extremely high definition of daguerreotypes are in fact related to the size of the silver, mercury, and gold nanoparticles observed on the surface of the photographic plates. After all, nanoscience—dealing with the infinitely small—has a unique relationship with visibility and invisibility, with light and matter, much like the photographic process itself.
Drawing on this inspiration, Giorgio Di Noto conducts his research by seeking, on one hand, to engage with a technology and a science that have become fundamental in recent decades, and on the other, to establish a visual and conceptual connection with photography—starting precisely from the physics and chemistry that made it possible. His investigation thus focuses on the possible connections between a science that studies an invisible world and a technology that represents, at least in appearance, the visible one.
The result of this ongoing project unfolds within the offices of Volvo Studio Milano as a series of visual notes exploring the relationship between photography and nanotechnology, the visible and the invisible. Artistic investigations into light, materials and photographic processes, surfaces, transparency, transmission, and reflection. What emerges is a fascinating and surprising body of cross-disciplinary work that touches upon the very nature of the image—photographic and otherwise—its tangible and intangible, material and conceptual properties
There’s plenty of room at the bottom by Giorgio di Noto
Vernissage on Thursday 23rd October at 7 pm
Opening event featuring a talk with the art critic and curator Mauro Zanchi
The exhibition will be on view every Saturday from 10am to 7pm, until 15th January 2026
More info at: info@viasaterna.com
@ Volvo Studio Milano
(Viale della liberazione corner Via Melchiorre Gioia)
REGISTER HERE FOR THE EVENT