Colorless, Odorless

The key elements of electronics, such as semiconductors and display components, are produced in “clean rooms,” which are spaces where environmental conditions, including dust, are controlled. However, workers in these clean and sanitized spaces are often exposed to chemicals that are seriously hazardous to their health. Unlike immediate catastrophes, diseases caused by the accumulation of chemicals often go unnoticed and develop slowly over generations.

What was that sour-yet-sweet odor? Does “clean” mean that it only maximizes production stability while being far from body safety? Ironically, it is only the memories of the bodies and the faint smells of the substances passing through the clean rooms that prove the invisible toxicity and dangers in these cutting-edge technology sites.

Colorless, Odorless follows the work records and archival materials of victims of semiconductor biohazards to trace the smells and actions of substances that cameras cannot capture. To this end, the voices of Asian women and migrant workers, who are exposed to the vulnerability, are heard. Testimonies from the past are overlaid on current symptoms, and the disaster perpetuates itself in other bodies and places. As multinational corporations move manufacturing plants to developing countries to lower not only labor costs but also the costs of implementing safety standards and regulatory responses, industrial disasters take place globally.

Perhaps the future is not an abstract projection, but something intertwined with specific bodies and matter. As high-tech industries lead the way in the globalization of risk and exploitation in increasingly outsourced workplaces, Colorless, Odorless attempts to map out the terrain of solidarity among victims, activists, and workers’ unions in the face of these risks and exploitation.e often exposed to chemicals that are seriously hazardous to their health. Unlike immediate catastrophes, diseases caused by the accumulation of chemicals often go unnoticed and develop slowly over generations.