Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go) (1987) mp4/DVD Rip

The Way Things Go (German: Der Lauf der Dinge) is a 1987 art film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects, resembling a Rube Goldberg machine.

The art installation was in a warehouse, about 100 feet long, and incorporated materials such as tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, old shoes, water, and gasoline. Fire and pyrotechnics were used as chemical triggers. The film is nearly 29 minutes, 45 seconds long, but some of that is waiting for something to burn, dissolve, or slowly slide down a ramp. The film is presented as a single sequence of events, but careful observation reveals over two dozen film edits.[1]

The film evolved out of work the artists did on their earlier photography series, "Quiet Afternoon", (German: Stiller Nachmittag) of 1984-1985. As the delicately unstable assemblages they constructed for the photos were apt to almost immediately collapse, they decided that they wanted to make use of this energy.[2] The film may also have been inspired by the video work of fellow Swiss artist Roman Signer. The artists undoubtably saw his video work which was exhibited at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1981.[3] Signer's videos often document objects performing simple actions that are the result of physical phenomena.