ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles the incursion of rising acid mine water, a toxic legacy of mining operations into human affairs. In 'dissenting' from the place assigned to it by mining, the water inserted the geological into the social and inaugurated new modes of political life. It argues that the acid mine water not only made the commodification of nature visible and generated protest on its behalf; it also opened up possibilities for ongoing aesthetic and architectural work on mining and its legacies. Early in the history of mining, water was used primarily for dust suppression after blasting. In 1986, 100 years after the discovery of gold, Ivan Kadey, while teaching at the University of the Witwatersrand, designed a speculative building which exposed the interconnectedness of city and geology. When the acid mine water first became visible in 2002, it received very little attention. It emanated from two abandoned mine shafts on the Randfontein Estates Gold Mine.
