MUTATIO
MUTATIO
What makes a tool a tool ? What is it for ? Is it always useful ?Do we really need it ? What is the difference between instru-ment and ornament ?
Mutatio investigates the digital evolution of a prehistoric tool, its uses and the possibilities that this can offer in an age that is now more and more projected towards the virtual.
Analyzing the prehistoric handaxe and its subsequent de-velopments, we note how we had stopped at the creation of the knife and then in a broader sense of the Swiss army knife, but nothing suggested further futuristic development. With this project, therefore, the aim is to give new life to what has characterized the human being more than any-thing else, looking in the virtual world for new possibilities for this ancient tool.
In its digital evolution, the well-known stone takes on new forms, not characterized by a specific purpose but which in a certain sense possess and change it giving it a new aspect, becoming its ornaments.
In fact, the difference between tool and ornament is also one of Mutatio’s fundamental points. That thin border between these two definitions that creates new creative processes to explore. Creative processes that are at the base of the project, where we arrive at a sort of final tool that, however, leaves room for a thousand interpretations that each of us can decipher in a different way. Parasitic ornaments, there-fore, that may seem useless parts, but it is precisely what the mind sees to define its use thus making it not only an or-nament but also a tool that can be used in the virtual world.
Returning to the original question: What makes a tool a tool?Strictly speaking, a tool is not meant to carry out a defined utilitarian task. Tools are born as challenges to existing con-cepts of utility. They open new underrighings of what could be useful. And it is precisely for this reason that, starting and exploring our primordial origins, Mutatio discovers and opens up new ways of approaching the physical and virtual world, fusing at the same time tools and ornament creating that vibration between the two that is the real engine of de-sign.
