The Nature of Narrative in the Age of Networks

This piece of video is simply extraordinary and needs to be shared and seen.

The Ruse:
People were told this bizarre and wonderful machine was built as a collaborative effort between the “Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory” and the “Sharon Wick School of Engineering” at the University of Iowa. It was alleged to be comprised 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa …Yep, farm equipment! They claimed it took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment,calibration, and tuning before filming. They went on to claim it is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University of Iowa, and is slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.  Watch:

The Truth:

The video is amazing, no question, but the “fantastic machine” depicted therein wasn’t built out of farm equipment parts at the University of Iowa. It’s an example, rather, of the incredible 3D computer animation created by Wayne Lytle and his team at Animusic in Austin, Texas. No such machine exists in the real world.

Nor, for the record, is there a “Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory,” a “Sharon Wick School of Engineering,” nor a “Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall” at the University of Iowa. The caption accompanying the video in emails circulating since November 2006 is entirely fictitious, authored by an anonymous prankster.

You can view a clip from the original video, entitled “Pipe Dream,” in its proper context here.

Real or computer animation… it’s worth the watch.