Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus
Sunday, December 13, 2009
A month ago, or so, I had the opportunity to see the Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus in action.
It really is a fascinating apparatus. This is what the creators of that machine have to say about it:
The “Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus” is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story by the use of patent drawings. The machine translates words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents — linked by over 22 million references — form the vocabulary. By using references to earlier patents, it is possible to find paths between arbitrary patents. They form a kind of subtext.
New visual connections and narrative layers emerge through the interweaving of the story with the depiction of technical developments.
And here is a little video, so you can see how it looks like:
It is amazing to stand in front of the machine and just watch.