Particular Waters
From ultrapure water as the manifestation of the scientific representation of water in H2O to local water conflicts between industrial, agricultural and domestic waters, the crisis of modern water is by no means limited to the matter of dwindling supplies. In the project Particular Waters, artist and filmmaker Su Yu Hsin investigates three scales of relational waters which flow through the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry. As TSMC has been growing, rainfall in Taiwan has become unpredictable, which has made the water footprint of chip production even more problematic. How has drought produced a climate of concern that further legitimises TSMC’s high water demand simply because the foundry’s destiny is seemingly inseparable from the national security of Taiwan and the US? Through a case study of the 2021 drought, which intensified the global chip shortage, the project moves across scalar registers and unpacks the socio-technological construction of the drought.
