"In an era of artistic grandeur, with towering artworks and massive exhibitions, there is a need for a healthy and decisive downsizing. Nanoart makes itself small, to the point of becoming invisible. To put it jokingly, I advocate for an art that doesn't catch the eye."
Alessandro Scali, Doppiozero
Experiment I | Nanoart
THE CONCEPT
What happens when an artwork is created at scales where human perception fails?
In collaboration with researchers from the Politecnico di Torino and IIT (Italian Institute of Technology), I have created physical sculptures on silicon wafers measurable in micrometers and nanometers (one billionth of a meter). These are not digital simulations, but matter manipulated at the atomic scale, accessible only through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is the end of the dictatorship of the eye: the artwork and its meaning exist independently of the human capacity to perceive them. A practice historicized by contemporary criticism (E. G. Rossi, Mind the Gap) at the intersection of art-science and cognitive limits.​
SELECTED ARTWORKS
Beyond the Pillars of Hercules
2006
135 x 460 µm
Oxide layer thermically grown on the silicon surface - Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope
54 human footprints engraved at a micrometric scale. A walk beyond the limits of Newtonian physics, documented through post-human technology.
Actual Size
2007
300 x 280 nm
silicon - Atomic Force Microscope
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The African continent lithographed at 300 × 280 nanometers. Geopolitical invisibility made literal. (Validation: Published in Nature, Vol. 449).
Key to Paradise
2007
350 x 450 µm
needle, metallized photoresist (SUB)
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A camel physically inserted into the eye of a needle at a nanometric scale. The biblical impossibility (Matthew 19:24) realized and dismantled by technological hubris.
Artwork
2008
50 x 750 µm
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A nanolithography bearing the engraving "This is not an artwork". An empirical refutation of M. Ferraris' normative theory of art, presented and debated publicly with the philosopher himself at the Turin Astronomical Park. The physical demonstration that artistic intention survives the uselessness of the human eye, challenging the boundaries of material perception.
Epilogue: Cosmic Contingency (2024)
MoonArk Project (Carnegie Mellon University / NASA)
Two nanometric works ("C'moon" and "Man with Smartphone") commissioned for a lunar archive designed to endure billions of years beyond Earth's destruction. ​
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You can download a PDF with more details about the MoonArk Project and the two nano-artworks clicking the button below.
C'Moon
2014
863 x 1266 nm
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The earliest form of human mark-making encoded at the nanoscale. An archetypal footprint translated into a physical data-set, designed to test the survival of the human trace outside its perceptive and planetary sphere.
Man with Smartphone
2014
745,8 x 1414 nm
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A nanometric encoding of the contemporary hybrid human figure. The contradiction of the 'Homo Digitalis' - hyper-connected yet isolated - rendered into a physical artifact destined for geological timescales, before its unplanned annihilation.
On January 15, 2024, due to a critical failure of the Peregrine lunar lander, the spacecraft disintegrated upon atmospheric reentry. The "eternal" artworks existed for only 7 days. The definitive, involuntary validation of human and technological fragility.​
MoonArk launch, Peregrine spacecraft
images of the moonark
the moonark payload on Peregrine spacecratf
MoonArk launch, Peregrine spacecraft