The Narrative Logic of Rube Goldberg Machines

摘要: Rube Goldberg’s cartoons famously depict absurd, unreasonably complex machines invented by Professor Lucifer G. Butts to carry out simple tasks. Goldberg machine has now become a byword for overly complicated machinery or bureaucracy of any kind. The specific structure original cartoons, however, is quite interesting. Beyond simply being complex, his are based on particular repertoire objects used in stereotypical, coincidental, and comical ways, exhibiting almost as much narrative logic mechanical logic. In this paper, we analyze the these cartoon machines’ construction, with view towards able generate them using planning formalization analysis.