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Entertainment

This Rube Goldberg Photobooth Will Make You Smile

Two MFA candidates put the inventor’s famous frivolities to a new use.

In today’s digital age, we can capture photos on the spot with a multitude of portable devices. With a mere push of a button you can deploy invisible mechanisms, storing images for pixel-perfect posterity. But some shutterbugs crave a process that’s a little more bespoke, which has spurred a refreshing resurgence of old-school photo techniques, that are putting artistry and anticipation back into the photographic process.

Enter the latest Rube Goldberg-inspired contraption: a photobooth.

The legendary artist and engineer has influenced plenty of creatives in the past, but implementing his famously complex domino maze into a photobooth installation adds an extra dose of nostalgia and interactivity to the idea. Designed by Alex Crawford and Austin Nelson, two graduate students at the Pratt Institute in New York City, the project grew from an assignment in a Multimedia Installation class.

Nelson told Architzer that the contraption’s construction took roughly 30 hours to complete. He notes that Rube Goldberg structures can be “basically pointless”—yet we can imagine playing with the setup for hours. With elaborate mechanics like these, who needs instant gratification, anyway?