The Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus (image above, video below) by Julius von Bismarck and Benjamin Maus is a networked installation consisting of a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story. The installation queries the database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office using words from a story as the search parameters. Patented drawings retrieved from the database are rendered to illustrate the story in a unique fashion which constantly varies as a result of the search results and their combination.

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.