Rube Goldberg machine
A Rube Goldberg machine is a nonsense machine that deliberately performs a specific task in numerous unnecessary and complicated steps. This is of no practical use, but is intended to be a pleasure to observe.
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The term Rube Goldberg machine goes back to the American cartoonist Reuben "Rube" L. Goldberg , who drew comics about a professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts who constructed unnecessarily complicated machines. The name Rube-Goldberg-Machine first appeared in writing in 1931.
Differentiation and similarities to other artists
The Rube-Goldberg machine differs from “nonsense machines” or kinetic art such as Franz Gsellmann's world machine in that it does a certain task consistently, albeit in an extremely cumbersome way. Here his designs are very similar to those of the British Heath Robinson .
Similar apparatus
- In German this type of machine is also known as what-happens-then-machine .
- The term Heath Robinson Contraption , named after the fantastic comic book machines by British illustrator William Heath Robinson , has a similar meaning but is dated before the Rube-Goldberg machine, which originated in the United Kingdom in 1912.
- In France , a similar machine is called usine à gaz , or 'gas plant', which suggests a very complex plant with pipes running everywhere. Nowadays it is mainly used by programmers to denote a complex program, also in journalism for a confusing legal situation.
- In Denmark they are called Storm P Maskiner 'Storm-P machines', after the Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen .
- In Spain , devices similar to the Goldberg machines are known as Inventos del TBO (tebeo) , named after those that illustrator Ramón Sabatés invented and drew for a section in TBO magazine , allegedly developed by a professor Franz from Copenhagen .
- In Turkey , these devices are known as Zihni Sinir Proceleri , supposedly invented by a certain Prof. Zihni Sinir ('grumpy head'), a curious scientist drawn by Irfan Sayar in 1977 for the comic magazine Gırgır .
- In Japan they are called 'Pythagorean devices' or 'Pythagorean switches'. PythagoraSwitch ( Japanese ピ タ ゴ ラ ス イ ッ チ , Pitagora Suicchi ) is the name of a TV show with such devices.
- In Bengal , the humorist and children's book author Sukumar Ray uses a character (uncle) with a Rube-Goldberg machine, called Uncle's contraption, in his poem Abol tabol (“nonsense”) . This word is colloquial in Bengali , for a complex and useless object.
Further artistic reception of the topic
- The Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss worked on it. Her film The Course of Things from 1987 is particularly well known .
- As a running gag in the bizarre French feature film Delicatessen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro from 1991 , one of the characters tries day after day in vain to put an end to their life by means of a grotesque apparatus that has been repeatedly constructed.
- Several of Tim Hawkinson's works of art contain complex devices that are typically used to make abstract art or music. Many of them are based on the randomness of other devices (like a slot machine ) and depend on them to create some minor effects.
- The Cog TV commercial for the Honda Accord , completed in 2003, contains an approximately two-minute sequence of mutually activating auto parts. The sequence was filmed authentically and is composed of two cuts.
- In 2008 the artist Christoph Korn developed a series of digitally based "NON machines". These machines are simple, sometimes redundant application programs that draw attention to aspects such as slowing down, dewatering, deprivation of knowledge, agrammatics, and non-functionality.
- In 2010, the American rock band OK Go staged the video for their song This Too Shall Pass as a monumental Rube Goldberg machine
- Another phenomenon is related to the Japanese art of hypothetically useful but useless vehicles called chindogu .
- The topic has also been dealt with in several computer games, in particular The Incredible Machine (Sierra 1993) and Crazy Machines (FAKT / Pepper Games 2004).
- Other comic works
- The Norwegian draftsman and narrator Kjell Aukrust created a cartoon character named Reodor Felgen , who is constantly inventing complex machines. Even if they are often made of very strange parts, they always work very well. Felgen also shines as the inventor of a very powerful but overly complex car, Il Tempo Gigante , in the puppet cartoon Flåklypa Grand Prix (1975) animated by Ivo Caprino .
- The topic is also taken up in Tom and Jerry , for example in the 1953 episode Designs on Jerry .
See also
Web links
Commons : Rube Goldberg machines - collection of images, videos and audio files
Individual evidence
- ^ Rube Goldberg . In: Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- ^ Cog . Snopes.com, October 10, 2006
- ↑ Christoph Korn : NON machines
- ↑ This Too Shall Pass by OK Go