By now alot of people would of caught a glimpse of OK Go’s newest meme, the music video for ‘This Too Shall Pass’ a complex Rube Goldberg machine.
Captivating, ..yes, Original, ..of course not. But when did advertising ever have to be.
This all to familar apperatus has been a frequent fixture. A number of cultural references come to mind, Milton Bradleys board game Mousetrap, Cadburys endorsed Cream Egg advert, or Peewee Hermans Breakfast Machine
Purely by haphazard, a couple of days prior to adding one more view to the existing 8, 000000 ‘This Too Shall Pass’ currently holds, i happened across a film from director duo Peter Fischli and David Weis. The film from 1987 titled ‘Der Lauf der Dinge’ (The Ways Things Go) was one of the first truely innovative implementations of the Rube Goldberg machine. In my opinion, concluded from what i’ve seen, nothing has matched this to date.
‘Inside a warehouse, Fischli and Weiss build an enormous and precarious structure made out of common household items such as tea kettles, tires, old shoes, balloons, ladders and wooden ramps. Then, with fire, water, gravity and chemistry, they create a spectacular 100 foot long chain reaction performance of physical interactions, chemical reactions, and precisely crafted chaos worthy of Alfred Hitchcock’
Infact, Honda was so impressed they stole the concept too, which resulted in a court case.
