PGP 23: Chain Reactions, Detours & Finding Your Path Through Play

PlayGrounding

The fun of a Rube Goldberg machine is watching a task, one that should be simple, being performed through a drawn-out series of seemingly meaningless detours. But we hate detours, right? Not always. This interview with Brett Doar, I hope, will challenge how you look at finding your “path” to success, to contentment, to your goals, whatever they are. (Hint: Play plays a pretty big role).

Brett Doar is a multi-disciplinary artist known for his work building Rube Goldberg machines and other types of interactive and kinetic devices. You might have seen his work in OK Go’s This Too Shall Pass video from a few years back. He and his team have also brought these, what he likes to call “Chain reaction machines” to live stages at places like such as The Colbert Report, Google IO and SO many more. He holds an MFA from the Arts, Computation and Engineering program at UC Irvine. But really, what’s most important to us, he’s capable of building ANYTHING out of paperclips.

His background includes working as a commercial fisherman, a bus driver, a film and video editor, and teacher (preschool, middle school, and university level). His work has received press in NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, PC Magazine, CNN, Rolling Stone, and the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and Comedy Central.

Show Links:

• Visit Brett Doar’s website to see more of his work
• OK Go’s This Too Shall Pass music video
• Brett’s machine opening an episode of The Colbert Report
• The Countdown Sequence to Google IO’s Keynote in 2014
• The Book of Henry – Opening June 2017