giada la gala

Giada La Gala

physicist · artist · science communicator · redacted (ask me in person)

↓

Hello, this is my portfolio: a selection of things I have done, and the place where I will post updates on my current work.

I am an Amsterdam-based physicist, artist and science communicator. During my PhD I studied how light and motion interact at the smallest scales. In my artistic practice I carry that experimental approach out of the lab and into performance and installation, where light is transduced to sound and the experiment expands to meet perception and emotion. At the University of Amsterdam I work between both worlds: I write about quantum research, bring artists and quantum scientists together, and look for ways to talk about what this technology might mean for society.

Log

  1. 2026

    Reality comes in waves – transducing the subject talk at the conference Bodies as Transducers, Orpheus Instituut, Ghent, 5 November event

  2. 2026

    Societal challenges around post-quantum cryptography talk, then panel with Paolo Cirio, moderated by Matteo Fabbri, SPUI25, Amsterdam event video

  3. 2026

    Quantum computing? What the hǝck? introduction to quantum computing and Qiskit workshop (with Koen Leijnse), then an assembly: quantum, culturally considered. [tbd] schedule

  4. 2026

    Un sonido por venir closing presentation of the Postnatural Independent Programme, La Casa Encendida, Madrid event

  5. 2026

    Postnatural Independent Programme Institute of Postnatural Studies, Madrid

  6. 2025–26

    Amsterdam Light Festival, 14th edition jury member

  7. 2025

    Reality comes in waves MFA graduation, Artificial Times, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam work review Artificial Times

  8. 2025

    Faramita performance, OT301, Amsterdam info

  9. 2025

    Rewire 2025 performance, Grey Space, The Hague

  10. 2024–25

    Quantum & art programme curator, University of Amsterdam

  11. 2020

    Glancing at tiny vibrations: backaction evading measurements of mechanical motion close to the quantum regime PhD thesis, TU Eindhoven / AMOLF thesis

  1. 01 · λ 633 nm Science communication QuSoft and QDNL at the University of Amsterdam
  2. 02 · λ 589 nm Art MFA at the Sandberg Institute; performance with sculptural instruments
  3. 03 · λ 532 nm Physics PhD in quantum optomechanics at AMOLF; Postdoc at the Italian Institute of Technology
  4. 04 · λ 473 nm Writing "Quantum" as a polysemy: a media studies paper in progress
  5. 05 · λ 405 nm Collectives Free software, feminist tech, and a hacklab
01 · λ 633 nm

Science communication

University of Amsterdam, now

At the University of Amsterdam I am science communication advisor for QuSoft, the Dutch research centre for quantum software. There I am immersed in academic research in mathematics, theoretical physics and computer science. I write articles that help disseminate the academic research and dedicate myself to outreach projects such as the Quantum Experience. I am also project and content lead for QDNL, the national quantum programme. My role is setting up collaborations between artists and quantum scientists. Broadly, I look for ways to talk about what this technology might mean for society, beyond the hype.

Two performers in white overalls stand apart on a paved square, holding between them a long blue sculpture shaped like a double-headed arrow: a giant qubit.
Quantum duet: miniature worlds and giant qubits, World Quantum Day 2024. Performers Stefano Melissa and Livia Bertacca.
Event poster: hands holding glass spheres over a glittering, iridescent crystal frame, with the title Natalie Paneng, Iridescence & Interference, Performance Lecture, 13.11, Studio Quantum, V2_.
Iridescence & Interference, performance lecture by Natalie Paneng, Studio Quantum, V2_, Rotterdam, 13 November 2024. Poster: V2_.
Building Bloch, a physical Bloch sphere I developed to demonstrate qubit states and quantum logic gate operations, for the Quantum Experience, QDNL Amsterdam.
Giada speaks at a wooden podium with a microphone, holding a presentation clicker.
My talk before the panel Societal challenges around post-quantum cryptography, SPUI25, Amsterdam, 2026.
  1. 2026

    Societal challenges around post-quantum cryptography talk, then panel with Paolo Cirio, moderated by Matteo Fabbri, SPUI25, Amsterdam event video

  2. 2026

    Polish art network visits UvA roundtable and presentation, University of Amsterdam

  3. 2025–26

    Amsterdam Light Festival, 14th edition jury member

  4. 2024–25

    Quantum & art programme curator, University of Amsterdam

  5. 2024

    Quantum duet: miniature worlds and giant qubits performance for World Quantum Day; concept Giada La Gala, music Andy Pavlov, performers Stefano Melissa and Livia Bertacca

  6. 2024

    Studio Quantum roundtable at The Evening of Iridescence and Interference with Natalie Paneng, V2_, Rotterdam event

  7. 2023→

    Quantum Experience QDNL Amsterdam, ongoing page

02 · λ 589 nm

Art

Sandberg Institute MFA 2023 to 2025 · Postnatural Independent Programme 2026 · now

My artistic practice allows me to reinvent the experimental approach I cultivated as a physicist in the lab. I am particularly drawn to concepts and ideas that belong to philosophy and social science. Therefore the practice is constantly negotiating with academic research in these fields. In Reality comes in waves I show research through performance and installation: light is transduced to sound. Central, however, is the dialogue between the performative gesture and the listener. It is there that the physics experiment expands to meet perception and emotion. I am interested in the concept of individuation (derived from Simondon), as constant transformation, in the material and immaterial (re-)configurations that are mediated by technical objects. I did my MFA at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (Artificial Times, 2023 to 2025), graduating with Reality comes in waves, and in 2026 joined the Postnatural Independent Programme of the Institute of Postnatural Studies in Madrid.

Close-up of a hanging metal sculpture whose lines loop like a drawing, lit in violet against a concrete wall.
The instrument of Reality comes in waves.
In a large brick hall, a violinist plays at a music stand on the left; on the right Giada stands with her back to the camera, facing a hanging metal sculpture lit by a white spotlight, while thin red laser lines cross the walls and the floor.
Reality comes in waves, performance with my sister Delia La Gala on violin, Thomaskerk, Amsterdam, 2025. Photo: Tom Philip Janssen.
A hanging metal sculpture on a tall curved stand in the corner of a brick hall, lit by a white spotlight; its shadows fall in blue and pink on the walls above.
Reality comes in waves at the Sandberg graduation show, Thomaskerk, Amsterdam, 2025. Photo: Tom Philip Janssen.
Reality comes in waves, installation view at Zero(one), Thomaskerk, Amsterdam, 2025 (review in Metropolis M). An interactive installation: the instrument is pushed away by changes in light and records every interaction.
Red laser light spreads into a diffraction pattern in the dark: glowing ribbons of light around two crossing red lines.
Laser light diffracted through glass.
Close-up of an open hand; two red laser lines cross on the palm in a glowing X, while the other hand holds the small laser modules and their wires.
Two laser lines cross in an open palm.
In a dark hall, Giada stands with her arms raised, playing a hanging metal instrument; a red laser line crosses the wall horizontally and another runs vertically from the ceiling, while a spotlight throws the sculpture's shadow onto the wall.
Performance with the instrument, crossed by laser lines.
A performer in black, seen from behind with one arm raised; a red laser line falls across her shoulder and arm.
Suburbia, Garage Noord, Amsterdam, 2025.
Thin metal lines spread like a drawing in the dark, gathered at a single point.
Suburbia: the instrument.
A spotlight on a draped curtain casts the shadow of a metal instrument; thin red laser lines run vertically and horizontally across the fabric.
Suburbia: shadows and laser lines on the curtain.
  1. 2026

    Reality comes in waves – transducing the subject talk at the conference Bodies as Transducers, Orpheus Instituut, Ghent, 5 November event

  2. 2026

    Un sonido por venir closing presentation of the Postnatural Independent Programme, La Casa Encendida, Madrid event

  3. 2026

    Postnatural Independent Programme Institute of Postnatural Studies, Madrid

  4. 2025

    Fruiting Bodies residency, Massia, Estonia

  5. 2025

    Reality comes in waves MFA graduation, Artificial Times, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam work review Artificial Times

  6. 2025

    Faramita performance, OT301, Amsterdam info

  7. 2025

    Zero(one) exhibition and performance, Thomaskerk, Amsterdam

  8. 2025

    Rewire 2025 performance, Grey Space, The Hague

  9. 2025

    Suburbia performance, Garage Noord, Amsterdam

  10. 2025

    Performance Jedna Dva Tři gallery, Prague

  11. 2024

    Rewire 2024 performance, Grey Space, The Hague

  12. 2024

    It’s not that far exhibition and performance with Artificial Times, Het HEM, Zaandam info

03 · λ 532 nm

Physics

PhD 2016 to 2020 · Postdoc 2021 to 2022

How do you look at something without disturbing it? Close to the quantum regime, every measurement changes what it measures. My PhD at AMOLF, in the Photonic Forces group, worked near that limit: I built tiny vibrating beams, used laser light to measure them, and tried to quickly glance at their motion so that it wouldn't be disturbed. Even thermal noise became a signal, written into the light that left them. During a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Italian Institute of Technology (2021 to 2022), I contributed to the development of nanopore sensing technologies exploiting anti-Stokes Raman scattering, aimed at sequencing single proteins.

My optical table at AMOLF crowded with mirrors, lenses on posts, fibre cables and detectors.
The optical table at AMOLF.
A photonic-crystal nanobeam meets a probe tip, filmed in the electron microscope at AMOLF. Scale bar: 5 µm.
Scientific poster from AMOLF: diagrams of an optomechanical experiment, plots of measurement noise and reconstructed mechanical states, with the paper title and authors G. R. La Gala, J. T. Muhonen, R. Leijssen and E. Verhagen.
Research poster on State preparation and tomography of a nanomechanical resonator with fast light pulses, AMOLF, 2019.
Thesis cover: hand-drawn suns and starbursts in orange, blue and yellow on black, with the handwritten title Glancing at Tiny Vibrations.
Glancing at tiny vibrations, 2020.
  1. 2023

    Quadrature-averaged homodyne detection for estimating cavity parameters Physical Review Applied doi arxiv

  2. 2022

    Nanomechanical design strategy for single-mode optomechanical measurement Journal of Physics D doi

  3. 2020

    Glancing at tiny vibrations: backaction evading measurements of mechanical motion close to the quantum regime PhD thesis, TU Eindhoven / AMOLF thesis

  4. 2019

    State preparation and tomography of a nanomechanical resonator with fast light pulses Physical Review Letters doi arxiv

  5. 2017

    Nonlinear cavity optomechanics with nanomechanical thermal fluctuations Nature Communications doi

04 · λ 473 nm

Writing

in progress

I am writing a paper in media studies on "quantum" as a polysemy. A draft is available on request.

  1. 2026

    Quantum as polysemy paper in media studies, in preparation ask for draft

05 · λ 405 nm

Collectives

ongoing

I care for collective projects that bring feminist values and practices to how we do, un-do and re-do our relationship with technology. I am close to the free software community and I am part of a collective hacklab, where we redacted (come and see) and redacted (ask in person).

Bright green poster: "Ruimte voor quantum computing? What the hǝck?", with drawings of Bloch spheres, 4 July 2026.
Ruimte voor quantum computing? What the hǝck?, 4 July 2026, at [tbd].
Bright green poster for the Qiskit workshop, 4 July 2026, 13:00–14:30, with Bloch sphere drawings.
The Qiskit workshop.
Bright green poster: "culturally considered", 4 July 2026, 17:30–18:30, with Bloch sphere drawings.
Quantum, culturally considered: an assembly on the social side of quantum technology.
Bright green poster with the timetable: 13:00 intro to quantum, 13:30 Qiskit workshop, 17:30 quantum, culturally considered.
The timetable of the day.
  1. 2026

    Quantum computing? What the hǝck? introduction to quantum computing and Qiskit workshop (with Koen Leijnse), then an assembly: quantum, culturally considered. [tbd] schedule

Write to me

mail@giadalagala.com

qusoft qdnl

About the front page

The top of this page is a small drawing of quantum waves you can touch.

For the full explanation and interactions, visit this website in a browser on a computer.

Your device is set to reduce motion, so the drawing stays still. Turn that setting off to see it move and to touch it. If this doesn't help, switch to a browser view on a computer.

What you see

Each blob of light is the wave of a cold atom, sitting in its own tiny trap. Together they behave as one wave spread over all the traps, so neighbours can interfere. The traps sit on a quasicrystal: a pattern with five-fold symmetry that is ordered but never repeats, famous for its five-fold diffraction. Its points are the corners of a Penrose tiling, the pattern Roger Penrose found in the 1970s: two kinds of rhombus that cover the plane without ever repeating.

When the page opens the atoms are hot. A hot atom is a mixture of many states, a pale blur without a definite phase. As they cool, a growing part of each settles into one coherent wave, and colour appears: it shows the phase of the wave. Once they are cold, moving the cursormoving your finger kicks them: the waves near it get a push, tilt into stripes and interfere with their neighbours, and the motion spreads to the waves around them before they settle again. Everything you do is mirrored five times around the centre.

The physics

A hot atom is a thermal mixture: a statistical mix of many waves with random phases, so it is not a single wave with a phase. As it cools, a coherent fraction f grows, until the mixture becomes a pure state, which has a phase. Even then the wave keeps a width σ₀, because a quantum particle cannot sit still at a single point. Brightness shows where an atom is likely to be found, |Ψ|²; colour shows the phase of its wave, arg Ψ.

n(r) = f |Ψc(r)|² + (1−f) Σj gT(r−rj)  ·  f = 1 − (T/Tc)²
Ψ(r,t) = Σj e−|r−rj|²/2σ² ei(k·(r−rj) − ωt)
ΔE = ħΩ [ (σ/σ0)² + (σ0/σ)² + (kσ0)² ] / 2 − ħΩ

This is a drawing made with the equations of quantum mechanics, not a simulation: the formulas are real, the timing is choreographed. The cooling follows a prescribed curve, the settling after a kick is a smooth fade, and the fraction f is borrowed from Bose–Einstein condensation, where many atoms share one wave. Interference happens with light and water too. The more specifically quantum parts are reading the wave as a probability, the width that remains at zero temperature, and the difference between a mixture and a pure state.

Below are three smaller versions of the experiment, each showing one idea on its own. Move the cursor over themTouch them, or press restart.

Heat

The atoms arrive hot and cool down, as at the top of the page, and the cursoryour finger heats them up again: they turn back into a pale mixture without a phase. The heat spreads to their neighbours, and when you stop they cool down again.

Kick

No temperature at all: every atom starts in its lowest-energy state, a pure wave at rest. The cursorYour finger kicks them, and ΔE shows the energy of the most excited one.

Release

The traps switch off. Each wave spreads freely, overlaps its neighbours and interferes with them. Then the expansion runs backwards and the waves refocus into their traps. The cursorYour finger releases the atoms near it.

Running the expansion backwards stands in for what a lab would do: switch the traps back on and cool. Spreading waves get fainter, so the brightness is rescaled, like a camera's auto-exposure. The same formula also describes a laser beam spreading out.