Aquarell

Wafer enlightenment machine

100cm x 90cm

In 2023, I produced a commissioned work for the Museum in Progress. My research led me to the equipment and geopolitical dependencies of the chip industry. The machine in the picture (ASML and ZEISS) illuminates a silicon layer, the wafer, with 13.5 nanometers (extreme ultraviolet light). No living being can see this spectrum. The wafer is the basis for the microchip. The shorter the wavelength of the light used, the more transistors fit on a microchip. With watercolor technique, everything becomes blurred per se`; here it is used to paint a machine based on nanometer precision. The image suggests the weightlessness of the 1.5-ton machine.