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Peter Fischli and David Weiss Peter Fischli Born 1952, Zürich, Switzerland Lives and works in Zürich David Weiss Born 1946, Zürich; died 2012, Zürich 1 Bice Curiger, Fischli Weiss: Flowers and Questions: A Retrospective , Tate Publishing, London, 2007, p.8. Peter Fischli and David Weiss / The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Linge) (stills) 1987 During a collaborative practice spanning more than 30 years, Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss cast their whimsical eyes over supposedly inconsequential details of everyday life, creating a body of work characterised by a poetics of banality. Hailed as one of the most iconic art films of the twentieth century, The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Linge) 1987 finds Fischli and Weiss engaged, like a pair of ‘utterly unorthodox scientists’, in a series of experimental actions ordered in an improbable causal chain. 1 In an empty warehouse, a slowly spinning garbage bag brushes a tyre, propelling it down an incline, where it knocks a plank which in turn forces the tyre to topple a stepladder, setting in motion a series of actions and reactions that unfolds, almost seamlessly, over 30 minutes. Divested of their normal functions, common household objects are compelled by the laws of physics to slide, roll, tumble, burst, spin and ignite in a sequence of controlled catastrophes that seems at once purposeful and pointless, their delightful absurdity reminiscent of the physical comedy of slapstick films or the self-destroying machines of Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely (1925–91). As the triviality of the individual actions gives way to the film’s inexorable domino-like sequencing, a sense of suspense builds — a growing fear that a minor miscalculation could break the chain. The surrounding charred floor, spilt substances and discarded studio detritus intimate that disaster, violence, conflagration and failure are never far away. 131 130 Burn Burn