Tights! Spatulas! Action! The madcap world of chain reaction videos

Need your hair cut? Cake served? No problem! Lockdown has led millions to discover the work of Joseph Herscher and friends, whose absurdly complicated labour-saving' machines reveal the potential for magic in the everyday

It's one thing to maim myself," says Joseph Herscher. But maiming someone else? I'm not sure I could live with that. At least I'd have it on tape, but it'd still suck to be killed by one of my machines."

Herscher, 36, is a chain reaction artist who works out of his bedroom in a Brooklyn flatshare. He builds elaborate contraptions using everyday items in the style of Rube Goldberg, the madcap American cartoonist and inventor.