A ball flies mid-air in The Botanical Machine, an installation by Joseph Herscher presented at the 2011 Venice Biennale, a classic example of a Rube Goldberg machine whose final purpose was to water a plant after a series of ingeniously futile steps.
Useless Machines as Artistic Gesture
So-called useless machines have a long history in art and experimental technology. As early as the 1960s and ’70s, artists like Jean Tinguely built noisy, kinetic, self-destructive contraptions, such as the iconic Homage to New York (1960), a machine designed to self-destruct at the Museum of Modern Art. In parallel, the legacy of Surrealism and Dadaism had already paved the way for absurdity as an expressive language, seen in Meret Oppenheim’s objects or the poetic, illogical structures of Marcel Duchamp.
Joseph Herscher, a contemporary artist-engineer, follows this lineage with his project Joseph’s Machines, a series of comical, deliberately useless machines inspired by the iconic Rube Goldberg devices.
These inventions perfectly embody the idea of exaggerated solutions to trivial problems, absurdly complicated mechanisms built to accomplish ridiculously simple tasks. In his videos, everyday objects such as books, fans, candles, or spoons interact in unexpected chain reactions.
Reorganizing the World in a Completely Useless Way
Herscher’s work is an engineering paradox, technically refined solutions that result in trivial outcomes. Each machine is a masterpiece of rigor and absurdity. The contrast between immense effort and minimal payoff creates humor that serves as an implicit critique of efficiency-driven ideology. His Ecomachines are a clear example, bizarre systems that pretend to save energy while actually multiplying complexity to the point of nonsense. The uselessness of the final function, however, demands impeccable precision, despite the absurdity of the solution, every element must work flawlessly so that the outcome, however pointless, is achieved with coherence and rigor. This too is a paradox of our times.
The Choreography of Useless Action
Herscher’s machines are not mere objects, they are performances. His videos are crafted like miniature stage plays in which every movement is choreographed with precision. Every element, even a carrot, can become a dancer. The performance of the “useless” reveals the human need to act, to build, to solve problems, even when the solutions are patently pointless. It’s a choreography of the absurd, where doing becomes art.
Digital Entertainment and the Charm of the Absurd
Joseph’s Machines are perfectly suited to the digital era, spectacular, surprising, and paradoxical. With millions of views and a vast online following, the project proves how captivating uselessness can be. Some viewers even find these convoluted sequences relaxing, finding a sense of order in chaos and beauty in purposeless gestures.
Uselessness as Poetic Value
In Herscher’s hands, uselessness becomes a virtue. His machines are a hymn to ingenuity for its own sake, and that is what makes them so fascinating. In full pataphysical spirit, they celebrate the excess of the insignificant, reminding us that even time “wasted” on a mad invention can illuminate the human condition with a spark of joyful creativity.
Recommended videos: The Page Turner, Pass the Salt, The Cake Server, available on the official website josephsmachines.com and on his YouTube channel.
Sources: The Guardian, Hugh Ryan, New York Times, Wikipedia.
