A nice touch: notice how the metal balls in the beginning are in sync with the drum beat.

the way things go, streamed. warning, there's a popup in it for you

Art is about ideas and there just aren't any ideas that I've ever seen beyond the basic notion of a Rube Goldberg machine, that I care about. Which is to say  I believe that as conceptual art, Mr. Goldberg did all that needed to be done with his proposal for a category of machines that accomplish simple tasks through convoluted means. That said, for sheer inventiveness, these beat the hell out of the OK Go video.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/8/PythagoraSwitch-2-553678.html

They are made for a Japanese children's show from what I understand. Hard to imagine anyone too much older than about 10 really getting into watching them though.

I've done the same for quite a few bands, if I like their work, I consider it a kind of "donation", even if I don't like or listen to their album, it supports them in making more art.

Then the Honda Cog commercial used more or less the same idea and won more or less every advertising award a few years back. Again, done in one shot for real, as a bit of anti 'doing it in post' thing. (although they may have cheated a bit). This video is the basically the same thing, but done with a bit more soul and humour.

Normally it goes…. Art Piece… gets ripped off by music video…. gets ripped off by commercial. So this video is a nice twist. Take the idea from a commercial.

It has a nice 'authentic' lo-fi video look to it, Like all their mates came over and happened to knock this together over a weekend over beer and a pizza. But it's not low-budget, by any means.

What feels great about the video is that it feels like you are being given it as a a present. Let's face it, you're not going to buy the single, are you? And they seem to know this. So what's the game plan? Interested to know how a band makes a living when it isn't planning to sell records or tickets. Will the Karmic model work for them?

There is no way any "rube goldberg machine" style video is a rip off of anything. It's a homage to the great Rube! I personally started pre-production a couple of months ago on a music video which uses a similar, if vastly less complicated, mechanic. Am I going to stop making it, now that OK Go have had a big, popular version of it? Hell no! It's fun, and it's still creative even if someone else has "done it before".

Do artists spend hours nodding to Renoir and Rembrandt before their brush hits the canvas? Hell no! They just start painting.

hmm well  Fischli and Weiss could have got the idea from "Back to the Future" or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" or any other "rip-off " of a Rube Goldberg style machine.

Sometimes it's not about the idea itself, but the presentation of said idea.

I wouldn't deny the band/music video director/ engineers credit  for their 5+ months of work that went into the video just because the idea isn't original. If

Create Digital Motion/Create Digital Music has taught us anything is that many times creativity comes from the reinvention and repurposing of older ideas and older technology.