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# How to Break a Beer Bottle and Fix It in 12 Easy Minutes
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/jonathan-schipper-measuring-angst/
- Published: 2012-01-26T18:31:39.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:46:19.000Z
- Description: I've never thrown a beer bottle across a room but I've definitely seen one break. The pieces shatter and scatter, and like a laundry detergent commercial, I wish I could just hit the rewind button and see it all come back together. Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Schipper taps into this desire with a
- Author: AX Mina
- Tags: Opinion, Installation Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![An installation view of the complete design of Measuring Angst before the bottle is drawn and quartered.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/01/measuring_angst_1-e1327506471958.jpg)

An installation view of the complete design of Measuring Angst before the bottle is drawn and quartered. (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

LOS ANGELES — I’ve never thrown a beer bottle across a room but I’ve definitely seen one break. The pieces shatter and scatter, and like a laundry detergent commercial, I wish I could just hit the rewind button and see it all come back together.

Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Schipper taps into this desire with [a slow-moving installation](http://vimeo.com/15139298?ref=hyperallergic.com) called *Measuring Angst*, which he says was inspired by watching a beer bottle thrown across a room. Over the course of 12 minutes, a series of rotating robotic arms break and then reassemble a single beer bottle in a [samsaric cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%83s%C4%81ra?ref=hyperallergic.com#Cycle%5Fof%5Frebirth) of birth and rebirth.

In an interview with [Co.Design](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665873/football-got-you-down-robot-smashes-a-beer-bottle-for-you-in-slo-mo?ref=hyperallergic.com), he described three iterative designs, starting with a spring and pulley that soon evolved into a brake system powered by Microsoft’s [Visual Basic](http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-basic-express?ref=hyperallergic.com) and a motion programming set developed by Peter Norton (yes, [that Norton](http://www.symantec.com/index.jsp?ref=hyperallergic.com)).

The work continues Schipper’s fascination with visualizing entropy, from *Slow Inevitable Death of America Muscle*, a [mesmerizing slow motion car crash](http://oppositionart.com/FULL%20SCALE%20CAR%20CRASH.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com), to *Slow Room*, [a living room ever so slowly pulled into a hole](http://vimeo.com/27912564?ref=hyperallergic.com) over the course of a month. But what gives the beer bottle piece an additional oomph is the idea that maybe things could go back to the way they were **…** until they’re broken into pieces once more.

[ars electronica: measuring angst](http://vimeo.com/15139298?ref=hyperallergic.com) from [Fabian Mohr](http://vimeo.com/fabianmohr?ref=hyperallergic.com) on [Vimeo](http://vimeo.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com).