It Just Does Nothing

As with most, if not every, studio in the world, we’re used to making stuff that does something - answers a brief or a challenge, solves a problem etc. In constantly creating work that does…something, it’s quite awesome to come across a machine that’s purpose built to do nothing.

The more you watch the movements, the spinning and the actions, the more the doing nothing becomes such a fun result (or non result?).

The project makes a little bit more sense coming from Charles and Ray Eames and a project they created in the late 50’s. Their grandson, Eames Dimitrious, who we had in the Studio in late 2024, found footage of the contraption and decided to edit it into this video. And perhaps the name is a little bit deceiving, because it turned out that the machine was one of the first devices to convert solar energy to electricity, so it did actually do something, in a revolutionary, ground breaking kind of way.

Here’s to the playfulness of design.