Joseph Herscher creates Rube Goldberg machines in his Brooklyn apartment, keeping alive the tradition of making a simple task much more complicated. The machines are named for Reuben Goldberg, who died in 1970, and is best known for "a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests." Our photographer Katie Sokoler dropped by Herscher's apartment to visit with him, his machines, and his hamster (named Chester).
Herscher has been creating these contraptions since he was five years old, and says when he was little his mom would get home late from work, when he was already in bed sleeping, so one day he attached a string to the front door that was connected to a recorder. When his mom came home and opened the door, the string triggered it to press play, and she would hear her son's voice say: "Welcome home mom!" Though he tells us his first invention was called The Candy Machine, "which was a box with a tube that I put my candy in to store it." His favorite however, was his 2008 "Creme That Egg" machine:
As for what's next, Herscher tells us, "I would like to make a machine that runs for a whole month and involves a tree growing and a chicken. At the end it will produce a painting. I'm currently looking for a gallery in New York that is interested."
