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Colourful illustrations in the user manual from the children’s game set MECHANIX caught my attention.  While drawing some of them, I started thinking about different kinds of tools since the evolution of mankind. A set of thirty A4 size drawings reflect my inquiry into tools as an extension of our being – physical, mental and socio-political. Some of the tools draw their inspiration from stories and anecdotes. At one point I was especially moved by the apparatus to punish, in the story ‐ The Penal Settlement by German writer Franz Kafka. Inspired by German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s account of nature of tools and equipment and the process of using them (‘ready-to-hand’ & ‘present-at-hand’), some of these tools are absolutely surreal entities. Their mechanism mirrors the ethos of the products of the ‘panopticon’.