Mutating minds in a changing world. The case of the Mutoid Waste Company and the development of alternative ways of living in the Capitalocene.

Abstract

My research began from the awareness of the urgency of elaborating new ways of living on this planet in order to survive and deal with the environmental crisis. The study intertwines in the debate about the Anthropocene and the alternative nomenclature proposed, with a focus on the Capitalocene. I found support for this proposal in the existence of many self-managed communities that, by rejecting the dominant system of capitalism, could establish new relationships with their environment. In my thesis, I explore the experience of the Mutoid Waste Company, a group of artists that are famous for their incredible sculptures made from waste, especially metallic scraps. Originally from the UK, they were travelers moving in convoy and occasionally squatting warehouses and abandoned buildings to use them as temporary laboratories for their work or as location for free parties. In 1990 they settled near the village of Santarcangelo di Romagna and founded the village of Mutonia. My research took place here, where I conducted interviews and engaged in informal conversation with the inhabitants. Through the observations collected during the visiting of Mutonia combined with the reading of secondary data, I documented how its members established an alternative paradigm that opposes to capitalism while being embedded in it, or better, arising from its ruins. I will observe how this small-scale community that was not born with explicit environmentalist intents ended up, by questioning capitalism and its ways of working, conducting ecological practices.