Useless Machines
Useless Machines
Useless Machines is a playful web archive of absurd inventions and delightfully impractical devices. Inspired by chindōgu, esoteric programming, and speculative design, it celebrates objects that serve no clear purpose — and that's the point. From intentionally broken gadgets to fictional contraptions, this collection is a joyful meditation on creativity, failure, and the strange beauty of things that don’t work the way you'd expect — or don’t work at all.
This archive was originally inspired by the course Useless Machines, taught at NYU’s ITP/IMA by Blair Simmons.
About the Course
Useless Machines is about redefining “usefulness.” Through making, students explore what it means — ideologically, politically, and historically — to create something ‘useful’ or ‘useless.’ The course encourages playful experimentation with these definitions, revealing how such objects can be humorous, critical, disruptive, and at times... even functional.
The class studies “useless” machines throughout history, prompting conversations and disagreements around the implications of existing and emerging technologies. Students design their own useless machines as final projects.
Examples of inspiration include:
— Kenji Kawakami’s
The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions
— Dunne & Raby’s Speculative Everything
— Stephanie Dinkins’ Conversations with Bina48
— esoteric.codes
— CW&T
— Mimi Ọnụọha’s Missing Data
— Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Impossible Objects
— Viral videos, conceptual artworks, and techno-absurdist devices
About Blair Simmons
Blair Simmons is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and Interactive Media Arts (IMA) departments, where they teach critical technology theory and community-driven courses such as Useless Machines and Technology and Communication.
They are a queer and anxious artist, curator, researcher, storyteller, and technician working in as many mediums as will have them. Their work explores themes of technology, labor, bodies, and pain — often created through a process that mimics the wear and tear of labor itself: warping, distorting, grinding, and breaking down.
Blair’s practice is both dependent on and critical of technology, reflecting how tech can simultaneously ease and exacerbate their experience of chronic pain.
Their research manifests in objects and performances showcased at venues such as Pioneer Works, La MaMa’s CultureHub, Wordhack at Babycastles, theBlanc, Honor Fraser Gallery, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, PARtake, The Scotsman, USA Today, and The Guardian.
Credits
- Project Lead & Archive Curator: Blair Simmons
- Website Design & Development: Yafira Martinez
- Contributors: Shelby Wilson, Kayley Chery
Why Useless?
Because function isn't everything. Because failure is interesting. Because sometimes the machine works best when it doesn’t work at all.