New Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner Rocks Installation Art

Jay Johnson - In the "now I've seen everything vein," Electrolux has come up with a artistic slant on a performance test track - called the Performance Through Art project -  for their new Electrolux Ergorapido vacuum. Cleverly emphasizing the sleek design of their two-in-one machine (there's a hand-held vacuum, handy for quick pickups), Electrolux worked with Swedish artist and set designer Tobias Allanson. Allanson loves technology and is obviously great at art in a techy Rube Goldberg kind of way, and he built a test track in the Electrolux test lab. In this video, you'll see the behind-the-scenes story of what he put together.

Christer Månsson, Product Manager for the Ergorapido at Electrolux, explained the test track they wanted Allanson to build.

"Pick up, easy handling and flexible steering are three important qualities we have developed to excellence. With this exciting experiment we wanted to see how Ergorapido performs in a test situation outside laboratories.”

Allanson describes the challenge of creating the world's first vacuum cleaner test machine - which would be nifty on any artist's resume, right?

“Building a moving piece around a vacuum cleaner was an unusual assignment. The biggest challenge for the machine was to show the two-in-one function, since the movements are more complex and I really went through some struggles with strong magnets. But my favorite one is the one where a bunch of shoes draggle the floors and Ergorapido picks up the dayglo debris right away. I have never gotten this close to a vacuum cleaner before and after the project decided to get the yellow one myself. It just seems weird to not have one around anymore."

And here's the Performance Through Art installation in action, now touring Europe.