“The Way Things Go” is a short film, directed by Fischli and Weiss, that showcases a Rube Goldberg contraption—a contraption that depicts a chain reaction to complete a simple task. Rube Goldberg contraptions, in my opinion, are very dramatic in a very positive way; the way that they can become intricate, and need a keen eye to make sure that everything will work out to completion, is absolutely incredible, and makes me appreciate the dedicated time it takes to create something so incredibly absurd—again, said with positive connotations.
“The Way Things Go” instantly reminded me of a music video I had watched during class last year: “OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – Rube Goldberg Machine – Official Video”. The entire music video consists of watching their Rube Goldberg machine unravel in real-time, and often in-beat to the song that plays in it. I think the song choice to use the Rue Goldberg machine on was a perfect choice; things like this take trial and error to complete, and therefor it can get very frustrating at some points. A nice reminder that, despite all your hardships and the things that come with it, everything can be okay by the time morning comes, and you can reset yourself each day to try again and keep going.
(to be quite frank, this should become a reminder for myself as I enter the new year)
I consider these video, amongst other videos created and inspired by this concept, to be art. It’s a thing that these creators took out of their day—in fact, quite possibly many days—to complete, especially including the trial and error that comes from testing it out to make sure each section worked completely. I have personally never have done something like this in my entire life, but I know that it’s not an easy thing to do, and especially one that takes up more than a minute to complete smoothly and perfectly. The dedication it takes can also become inspiring to others, and therefore can help keep this domino effect of inspiring others to accomplish their own tasks—and so on and so forth.