The space of a cleanroom is engineered to remain as sanitized
as possible. The manufacture of widespread microchips relies on these actively cleansed conditions, where the presence of dust becomes antagonized to ensure optimal commercial production through maximum isolation and control. After four months of conducting embodied research working in these cleanrooms, The project reinscribes the perspective of dust within these environments. In an interactive installation, participants shift into investigators of the nature and experience of dust as a constant entropic entity reigning outside a cleanroom. Prompted by an audio protocol, Shaped by Dust presents the particles as a silent record of human actions and decisions.
The intention behind the investigation is to redefine the role of the material designer; the project aims to initialise a close understanding with a substance that outside is unvalued, worthless and symbol of dirt.
The investigation reveals where dust obtains economic and production value, indirectly, by its absence,remaining the protagonist of an infrastructure which manufactures the internal and fundamental parts of every electronic device.
©PierreCastignola
Microtuin - 22/30 October 2
