USELESS TOOLS

Colwell’s video Aporia examines how our perception of the world is tuned by our past experiences and though the quirks of each individual’s way of seeing, sensing, and hearing the world around them.   

Useless Tools turns inside-out Aporia’s metaphor of honed perception by taking two tools used in piano tuning—tuning forks and mutes—and recreating them in paper, thus nullifying each tool’s function.  The paper sculptures gesture to moments when the refined quality of our perception is rendered useless, provoking a new tuning of understanding and experience.