Rube Goldberg’s Ghost: Confounding Design and Laborious ObjectsFebruary 28 - May 4, 2013

Artwork Image from Exhibit

Self-Tour Guide

This Self-Tour Guide was created as a viewer supplement to the exhibition by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces (DEPS). It contains a curatorial essay, special terms glossary, and questions for looking and discussion. Free tours of this exhibition are available. Please contact Camille Morgan to arrange, cmorgan@colum.edu. For more information and related programming, visit colum.edu/deps

Brian Dettmer, Randomhouse

Glass Curtain Gallery1104 S. Wabash Ave., First FloorMonday through Wednesday, Friday, 9am - 5pmThursday, 9am - 7pmSaturday, 12pm - 5pmSunday, CLOSEDFree and open to the public

Rube Goldberg’s Ghost: Confounding Design and Laborious Objects

The comical machines of American cartoonist and inventor Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg were never intended to be built and used. His cartoon schematics of impossibly complicated low-tech machines and designs poked fun at both bureaucratic systems and the laborious machinations required to traverse them. While Rube Goldberg took a light-hearted and humorous approach to public concerns with a wink and a nod, Rube Goldberg’s Ghost: Confounding Design and Laborious Objects presents contemporary artworks that offer plau-sible deniability toward some of society’s current obsessions, ills and issues. In the spirit of Rube Goldberg’s cartoons, this exhibition examines social, cultural and design dilemmas through ingenious DIY engineering and ‘what if’ solutions.

- Elizabeth Burke-Dain, Curator

Curator’s Statement

Artists: Matthew L. Aron, Karen Bovinich, Juan Angel Chavez, Brian Dettmer, Fischli & Weiss, Conrad Freiburg, Joan Giroux, Joseph Herscher, Taylor Hokanson, Industry of the Ordinary, Heidi Kumao, Betsy Odom, Erik Peterson, Mark Porter, Michael Thompson and Graem Whyte

Rube Goldberg, Get Sand Out of Shoe, c. 1920-1930

Glossary

Absurd: Ridiculously unreasonable, un-sound, or incongruous; having no rational or orderly relationship to human life.

Behavior Modification: The traditional term for the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors through positive and negative reinforcement of adap-tive behavior and/or the reduction of behav-ior through its extinction, punishment and/or satiation.

Chain Reaction: A process in which the result of one event triggers another event, which in turn triggers another event, and so on.

Confound: To perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse.

Contraption: A machine or device that ap-pears strange or unnecessarily complicated, and often badly made or unsafe.

Fabulation: Relating to untrue or invented stories.

Fulcrum: The point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots.

Ex: Fulcrum

Gear: One of a set of toothed wheels that work together to alter the relation between the speed of a driving mechanism and the speed of the driven parts. Ex: Gears

Invention: Something fabricated or made up to serve a specific purpose.

Laborious: A task, process, or journey that re-quires considerable effort and time. A speech or writing style that shows obvious signs of effort.

Rube Goldbergian: Characterized by accom-plishing through complex means what seem-ingly could be done simply.

Satire: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues

Schematic: A diagram or drawing meant to represent an electrical or mechanical design

Ex: Electrical schematic

Questions for Looking and Discussion

1. Why didn’t Rube Goldberg make any of these machines?

2. Choose an artwork and describe what you see. Try to imagine who this artist is. Describe his or her characteristics/personality.

3. In what ways do the artworks reflect the concepts of Rube Goldberg?

4. Which artworks are “confounding design” and which are “laborious objects” and why?

5. Which of the sculptures or videos in the exhibition could be considered a “chain reaction” machine?

6. How is the role of artist similar to the role of inventor or designer? How are these roles different?

7. Which works in the exhibition display or explore a relationship to the social environment?

8. In Taylor Hokanson’s piece, Controlled Feeding Status, we learn about Nutraloaf and its use in the prison system. Would Nutraloaf ultimately work for people dieting to lose weight? Why or why not?

9. Humankind has always invented technologies to make our lives easier and more efficient. Can you name a technological innovation that has made our lives both easier and more difficult? In what ways?

10. In our daily lives we utilize various machines and systems. Can you think of a machine or designed system that, in your opinion, is absurd and why? (Example: the subway system, filing taxes, restaurant interior layout, etc.)

As you engage with the individual artworks, pick out one or more as you consider the following:

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