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Games

Rube Goldberg Goes Virtual In This Interactive Installation

A giant puzzle machine that mixes digital and real.

Taking their inspiration from the madcap cartoon sculpture/machine concoctions of Rube Goldberg, artists Lucas Werthein and Jason Aston created Boom Shakalaka based on the premise that a simple, effortless task can be made complicated through precision, creativity, determination, and expert timing. Boom Shakalaka is a real-time, real world physics-based game with whirring mechanisms and spinning shapes, where the spectators of the game are also participants, pushing buttons, holding down levers, and knocking over dominoes to influence the virtual balls flying about on six large screens in front of them. In the video above you can see the installation in action and in the video below you can see the computer simulations and real world mechanics that went into to realising this hybrid puzzle machine. Here’s what the artists said about it:

The piece was developed to run continuously over time. It can run with or without the interaction of people. It was designed to display the continuity of life and the obstacles that we face daily when making small decisions that can lead to the road not taken. Inspired by Robert Frost's poem, we developed a machine that has a life of its own, but can be manipulated and altered as people begin to play and exert their actions into the fantasy world.

[via Creative Applications]