The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2025–2026
OK Go films 'Love' in one take as robot arms dance mirrors — two Grand Clio Music wins
OK Go's first album in a decade got a one-take video: robot arms move mirrors around the band in a Budapest station, making light the choreography.
OK Go · SpecialGuest
What it had to solve
After a decade without an album, OK Go's fifth LP needed a video worthy of the band's practical-effects reputation — and partners Ray-Ban Meta, Universal Robots, KUKA and PMI co-funded a stunt that looked impossible.
How it works
In April 2025 OK Go released 'Love', the title track of 'And the Adjacent Possible', its first studio album in a decade. The band had built its reputation on one-take videos that viewers cannot quite believe are real, so the brief was self-imposed: make the comeback video the most technically ambitious thing it had ever filmed — a genuine single shot, not an edit. The metaphor the team chose was love as infinite reflection: mirrors multiplying mirrors.
The shoot took place in Budapest's Nyugati railway station, where robot arms (Universal Robots cobots, synced to the song at 78 BPM through custom Python and OpenFrameworks software) carried mirrors through meticulously timed choreography around the band. Over 60 people from 10 countries rehearsed until take 39 succeeded; in parallel, bassist Tim Nordwind wore Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses through the whole take, and his point-of-view footage plus partner-made films became three behind-the-scenes videos showing how the illusion was built.
The video premiered on YouTube alongside Instagram and TikTok content and a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It reached 7 million YouTube views within 10 days and had been watched more than 8.3 million times across the video and BTS films by February 2026. It won two Grand Clio Music Awards at the 2026 Clio Music ceremony (Design Craft and Music Film & Video), picked up a Gold and a shortlist, and earned a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best Music Video.
Why it lands
- A single unbroken take keeps the 'is it really real?' thrill that made OK Go famous — no cuts can hide the craft.
- Robots were the honest answer to the core visual metaphor: mirrors must stay perfectly parallel for infinite reflections, which humans cannot hold while moving.
- The constraint manufactured its own content — a POV shot from the glasses-wearing bassist turned the machinery and 38 failed takes into a second wave of storytelling.
- Partners got a genuine proof of their technology inside the work itself, so the video doubled as a demonstration for Universal Robots, Meta, KUKA and PMI.
What it did
Two Grand Clio Music Awards 2026 (Design Craft; Music Film & Video), plus a Gold, a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best Music Video, 7 million YouTube views within 10 days, and 8.3M+ combined views of the video and its BTS films by February 2026.
What you can take
Let the medium be the proof: when a partner's product genuinely enables the spectacle, demonstrate it inside the work itself — the making-of then becomes the campaign.
Since then
The video became one of the most celebrated music films of the year: two Grand Clio Music Awards, a Gold, and a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best Music Video. By February 2026 the official video and its three behind-the-scenes films had passed 8.3 million YouTube views with more than 200,000 Instagram likes. For OK Go the project re-established the band's decade-long run of engineering-driven music videos; for its partners it provided the making-of case studies that continued circulating through the industry.
Sources
- Explore a Wonder-Filled Robotic Video for OK Go's 'Love'
- OK Go and SpecialGuest Earn Two Grand Clio Music Awards for Music Video 'Love'
- Syncing 25 robots to a beat: The making of OK GO's 'Love' music video
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